The most important rights, which state such a balance between these two parties, are the rights of intellectual property. Thus, an important question is to what extent 3D-printing conflicts with intellectual property rights. In general, intellectual property balances the rights between the owners of genuine products and their use through third parties. On the one hand the intellectual property rights give exclusive rights to the genuine owners, on the other hand they give as well some important exceptions for the use of third parts material. Hence, the purpose of this work is to examine, which intellectual property rights are affected by the production of a 3D-printed object. In each of the following chapters I will look at the different categories of intellectual property rights. I will examine in how far the creators of a CAD, the uploaders who upload a CAD on a website for a free or commercial download, the website owners who facilitate that uploads and the printers, whether private or with a commercial purpose, may be in conflict with any intellectual property rights. The most important intellectual property rights, which could be affected, are copyright, patents, registered designs, trade marks and passing off. For the present investigation it will be necessary to have a closer look at the different steps of the developing process of a 3D-printed product. More precisely, we have to differentiate between the creation of the CAD, the uploading of a CAD and finally the home-printing or the printing on demand through a specialised company. The aim of this work is to show how these single steps conflict with intellectual property rights and how the different actors in this process are liable for any infringing activity and in how far their activity is covered by any exception. Furthermore, we will also examine whether current legislation and jurisdiction appropriately address issues brought about by this new technology. Because of the reason, that the issue of 3D-printing in relation to intellectual property is quite a new one, this work will occasionally have a look abroad to other jurisdiction how they already dealt with similar problems. With this in mind, especially the US, European and German jurisdiction and laws will be regarded.

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Intellectual property rights (IPR) have become a major problem in the relationship between the industrialized West and the developing South, primarily because the West demands that developing countries adopt and enforce Western IPR. Since the relationship between US corporations and Chinese businesses is among the most successful and at the center of the current process of globalization, IPR have been a major cause of conflict and controversy between them and serve as an exemplar for this thesis. I argue, first, that the reason that a large number of Chinese businesses, especially privately-owned small and medium-sized enterprises, infringe foreign IPR lies in the nature of the difference between what have been mostly low-tech traditional Chinese businesses and high-tech industrial economies, to which intellectual property laws belong. Second, I demonstrate that the steady improvement of intellectual property protection in the more successful areas of development in the Chinese economy suggests that the solution for improved IPR protection in China and perhaps other emerging nations will follow, not precede, the development and transformation of a low-tech pre-industrial economy into an industrial high-tech economy.

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This dissertation will take a theoretical approach to analyzing certain challenges in the design of intellectual property rights (`IPR') policy. The first essay looks the advisability of introducing IPR into a market which is currently only very lightly protected - the US fashion industry. The proposed Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act is intended to introduce EU standards into the US. Using a sequential, 2-firm, vertical differentiation framework, I analyze the effects of protection on investment in innovative designs by high-quality (`designer') and lower-quality (`mass-market') firms when the mass-marketer may opt to imitate, consumers prefer trendsetting designs and firms compete in prices. I show that design protection, by transforming mass-marketers from imitators to innovators, may reduce both designer pro ts and welfare. The model provides possible explanations for the dearth of EU case law and the increase in designer/mass-marketer collaborations. The second essay contributes to the literature on patent design and fee shifting, contrasting the effects of the American (or `each party pays') rule and English (or `losing party pays') rule of legal cost allocation on optimal patent breadth when innovation is sequential and firms are differentiated duopolists. I show that if litigation spending is endogenous, the American rule may induce broader patents and a higher probability of infringement than the English rule if R&D costs are sufficiently low. If, however, R&D costs are moderate, the ranking is reversed and it is the English rule that leads to broader patents. Neither rule supports lower patent breadth than the other over the entire parameter space. As such, any attempts to reform the US patent system by narrowing patents must carefully weigh the impact on firms' legal spending decisions if policymakers do not wish to adversely affect investment incentives. The third and final essay analyzes the effects of corporate structure on licensing behaviour. Policymakers and legal scholars are concerned about the potential for an Anticommons, an underuse of early stage research tools to produce complex final products, typically arising from either blocking or stacking. I use a simple, one-period differentiated duopoly model to show that if patentees have flexibility in corporate structure, Anticommons problems are greatly reduced. The model suggests that if the patentee owns the single (or single set) of essential IPR and goods are of symmetric quality, Anticommons issues may be entirely eliminated, as the patentee will always license, simply shifting its corporate structure depending on the identity of the downstream competitor. If the rival produces a more valuable good, Anticommons problems are reduced. Further, if the patentee holds 1 of 2 essential patents, the ability to shift its corporate structure may reduce total licensing costs to rival firms. However the analysis offers a cautionary note: while spin-offs by the patentee help to sustain downstream competition, they may restrict market output, and therefore welfare. Thus the inefficiency in the patent system may be in the opposite direction than is currently thought - there may be too much technology transfer, rather than too little.

48 pages / Policy on the parallel imports of medicines is being debated currently in Korea. This paper looks at several countries' trends, the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement, and the Korean golf market to search for policy ideas. A simple consumer welfare benefit-cost and sensitivity analysis shows that parallel imports give not only consumers' surplus on parallel imported golf clubs, but also a much larger consumers' surplus on authorized brand versions.This paper makes the following recommendations: First, parallel imports should be permitted according to the principle of free trade, if the cost of parallel imports to the country is not much larger than the benefit. Second, even if parallel impmts are pem1itted, some exceptional cases should be allowed where international exhaustion is problematic. Third, governmental intervention, a clear labeling system, for example, is required to protect consumers, and help consumers make rational choices. / Note: This digital copy was scanned from a personal copy, and contains some underlining and marginalia.

Thomas Pogge proposes the Health Impact Fund (HIF) as a realistic, feasible reform to the pharmaceutical patent regime that would incentivize pharmaceutical research and reward innovation for medicines based on their impact on the global burden of disease. Pogge advances a human rights-based argument to show that the HIF is a morally required addition to the current pharmaceutical patent regime. One objection to his human rights argument comes from a libertarian appeal to property rights. Pogge’s response to the libertarian leads to the counterintuitive conclusion that libertarianism is incompatible with any system of intellectual property rights. This paper will show how Pogge fails to distinguish between what I call status quo and revisionist libertarian positions on intellectual property. Making this distinction, I maintain, would strengthen the human rights argument and allow Pogge to avoid the counterintuitive conclusion of his response to the libertarian.

Intellectual property rights (IPR) have become a major problem in the relationship between the industrialized West and the developing South, primarily because the West demands that developing countries adopt and enforce Western IPR. Since the relationship between US corporations and Chinese businesses is among the most successful and at the center of the current process of globalization, IPR have been a major cause of conflict and controversy between them and serve as an exemplar for this thesis. I argue, first, that the reason that a large number of Chinese businesses, especially privately-owned small and medium-sized enterprises, infringe foreign IPR lies in the nature of the difference between what have been mostly low-tech traditional Chinese businesses and high-tech industrial economies, to which intellectual property laws belong. Second, I demonstrate that the steady improvement of intellectual property protection in the more successful areas of development in the Chinese economy suggests that the solution for improved IPR protection in China and perhaps other emerging nations will follow, not precede, the development and transformation of a low-tech pre-industrial economy into an industrial high-tech economy.

The economy of Taiwan grows fast in the last few years. The traditional industry moves overseas because of the factors of the cost, environment issue...etc. Moreover, people want better quality of living that makes the technology and the high-technology industry of Taiwan improve fast. In the past, the tradition industry focuses on visible property, for example: land, factory buildings and machines. The high-technology industry emphasizes the property that is invisible called ¡§Intellectual Property Rights¡¨. It is included interary property rights, patent rights, trademark right, opening secrets, and IC. It not only supports the development of the high-technology and competition in marketing but also brings in a large amount of license fees. On the other hand, compare with other industries, the environment of the computer software industry is different from others¡¦ so that it has to face different problems. However, the copies of the computer software prevail nowadays. How to protect computer software has been an important issue. Therefore, the companies of the computer software industry have to increase their own competition ability and even stop their opponents to enter the markets. It is necessary to acquire the computer software patent. The way to acquire the patent of the software depends on the quality of the technique and knowing the patent law opinions of the patent examiners and how they examine the patent applications. There is a probe into the opinion of the patent examination system to software patent in this article and the way of gathering and analyzing real cases is used. In conclusion, computer software patent is¡¨ a technique of using computer software¡¨. It is an invention that fit the patent laws of our country and the rules of examination of patent. The techniques of computer software inventions combine the business models and the related techniques of computer software. Therefore, In this article, the related law rules of intellectual property rights, the allowed computer software patents and the related documents about computer software are standers for patent protection. Those are the basic reference materials that provide related industries ways of protection after computer software invented. Hopefully, the research can clear out the related problems that the computer software applicants might face.

Firstly, this Study focuses on ¡§Border Measures¡¨ in World Trade Organization¡]WTO¡^Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights¡]TRIPS¡^and in World Customs Organization¡]WCO¡^¡§Model Legislation¡¨. These two measures appear to form the backbone of China Intellectual Property Rights¡]IPR¡^ border protection for the time being. Other reasons for China Customs to implement IPR protection are U.S-China IPR MOUs. Secondly, after this explanatory study on China Customs¡¦ border measures, we find some structural problems existing in PRC¡¦s¡]People¡¦s Republic of China¡^General Administration of Customs¡]GAC¡^ that IPR infringements couldn¡¦t be eliminated at all. Owing to the PRC¡¦s special political-economic conditions, China Customs¡¦ IPR border measures cannot achieve the international standard. They cannot effectively limit the import/export of infringements or counterfeit goods. In their enactment as well as in enforcement of IPR border measures, China Customs still has a long way to go.