<p>The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) ia a multilateral international treaty introduced by the World Trade Organization (WTO) that came into effect on 1 June 1995. At a basic level it attempted to establish minimum standards for the regulation of intellectual property rights within those countries that are members of the WTO and signatories to it. This thesis served a dual purpose. The first leg was to embark on an investigation into TRIPS, criticallt analyzing the provisions of the Agreement. The important aim here was to analyze and discover whether TRIPS is sensitive to weaker countries. The second leg was to probe within the the legislative framework of South Africa and determine whether South Africa as a &quot / developing copuntry&quot / , has complied with the demands as expressed by TRIPS. This investigation was done with specific reference to South African patent law.</p>

The study’s aim was to determine how consumers relate to specific factors that affect the way in which fruit is marketed in supermarkets. This might have an influence on effective commercialization of new intellectual property in the global avocado industry.

In many online communities, users reveal innovative and potentially valuable intellectual property (IP) under conditions that entail the risk of theft and imitation. Where there is rivalry and formal IP law is not effective, this would lead to underinvestment or withholding of IP, unless user-organized norms compensate for these shortcomings. This study is the first to explore the characteristics and functioning of such a norms-based IP system in the setting of anonymous, large-scale, and loose-knit online communities. In order to do so, we use data on the Threadless crowdsourcing community obtained through netnography, a survey, and a field experiment. On this basis, we identify an integrated system of well-established norms that regulate the use of IP within this community. We analyze the system's characteristics and functioning, and we find that the "legal certainty" it provides is conducive to cooperation, cumulative effects, and innovation. We generalize our findings from the case by developing propositions aimed to spark further research. These propositions focus on similarities and differences between norms-based IP systems in online and offline settings, and the conditions that determine the existence of norms-based IP systems as well as their form and effectiveness in online communities. In this way, we contribute to the literatures on norms-based IP systems and online communities and offer advice for the management of crowdsourcing communities.

In this dissertation I explore the role and importance of patent strategy for appropriating returns from innovation. In particular, I examine the mechanisms through which firms increase appropriability from patenting by employing complementary resources and capabilities and gauge their contribution to firm performance. To this end, I perform three empirical studies. In the first study, I focus on measuring patent value and demonstrate that the importance of firm resources and capabilities is much higher than previously thought. I interpret these results as providing strong support for the view that the design of patent strategy is crucial for profiting from innovation. In the second study, I look into a sample of technology acquisitions and examine under what circumstances firms profit from combining previously separate patent rights. I demonstrate that the merging of overlapping patent portfolios give rise to inimitable synergies, albeit only in complex technology industries. In addition, I find that firms are more likely to acquire targets with patents when their patent productivity is low, when they have a technologically diverse patent portfolio in complex technology industries and when they face an increased threat of being involved in patent suits. In the third study, I explore the role of patent strategies in the non-technological domain. I demonstrate that recent regulatory changes enabling the patenting of business methods can help patentees capture value from business model and management innovations. Moreover, I find that patenting experience and access to complementary assets are both crucial elements of a patenting strategy aimed at increasing appropriability. Taken together, these studies contribute towards bringing studies of patenting and the resource-based view of the firm closer together, to mutual advantage. This results in a better understanding of the effectiveness of patents at the firm-level and in a clearer operationalization of concepts of resources and resource interdependence.

This Master thesis named "Relationship between Competition Law and Intellectual Property Law", deals with the interface between competition law and intellectual property law in the context of European Union law. In the beginning of this thesis authors briefly introduce both legal disciplines and explain their most important terms and goals. The thesis is further divided into three main topics. Firstly, we elaborate on theoretic relationship between competition law and intellectual property in regard to their values, aims and methods of regulation. Then we dive into the issue of conflict of nationally regulated intellectual property law with the internal market and the freedom of movement of goods and services. The second thematic part clarifies the difference between market power and statutory monopoly that is granted to the owners of intellectual property. We analyse the specific issues of finding dominant position of competitors owning intellectual property. Then we examine individual types of behaviour that are considered to be abusive in the context of intellectual property law. Special focus is given to the issue of refusal to licence intellectual property that falls within the definition of essential facility doctrine. Lastly, we concentrate on cartel agreements in the context of intellectual...

The subject of this thesis is the introduction to legal protection of industrial design at EU level through Community design, and comparison of Community design with other types of legal protection available. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part explains the terms 'design' and 'Community design', while the second part compares Community design with other industrial design legal protection systems. The second part also provides a description of how both Community design and other legal protection systems may be applied concurrently. The first part opens with a definition of the term 'design', and then describes design's relation to intellectual property and industrial design rights. Afterwards, a brief overview of the legal regulation for industrial design protection at national, international, and EU level is presented, and a characterization of institutions that provide design protection at each of the levels, respectively, is given. The key element of the first part of the thesis is a detailed analysis of Community design. The terms 'registered' and 'unregistered Community design' are thoroughly defined, and their common features as well as differences are described. Furthermore, conditions necessary for Community design registration are listed. Finally, a description of the...

The main purpose of the thesis is a specification of so called COMPUTER or so called CYBERNETIC CRIMINALITY. The term itself could be defined in a restricted as well as in an extensive way. This thesis attempts to achieve a medium definition reflecting both these extremes. The thesis is divided into five chapters. Each chapter describes particular group of wrongful conducts. The crucial criteria for cathegorizing are similar features common to all these types of wrongful conduct. Each wrongful conduct is characterized by a detailed description of particular offense, its standard course and its legal assessment in accordance with the Criminal Act No. 40/2009 Collection of Laws, as amended by furher legislation. The first chapter deals with offences against computers and computer systems - in other words, offences against the data stored within the system or transmitted inside them. It mainly focuses on unauthorized and illegal interventions into data integrity, unauthorized and illegal penetrations into computer systems and attempts to restrict the availability of computer systems for particular time periods. The second chapter deals with fraudulent behaviour in the cyberspace which aims at bringing about damage to their victims and attempts to enrich on their credit. Each subchapter thoroughly...

IN ENGLISH The purpose of my thesis is to analyze phenomenon called software piracy. The thesis is composed of seven chapters, each of them dealing with different aspects of issues related to the software piracy. Chapter One is introductory and defines term software. Chapter Two examines the software piracy. The chapter consists of seven parts. Part One focuses on basic definition. Part Two investigates software piracy in cyberspace. Part Three defines individual categories of software piracy and the reasons for them. Part Four explains and describes illegal software and illegal use of software. Part Five deals with restrictions on extent of rights of author to his software related to the legal license. Part Six is focused on sociocultural aspects of software piracy and impact of these aspects on the effectiveness of legal regulation. Last Part of this Chapter is dedicated to the public research on questions relevant to the software piracy. Chapter Three is subdivided into six parts and provides an outline of relevant legal regulations for protection of software. Part One contains basic demarcation. Next Parts are dealing with the protection of software with the relevant provisions of administrative law, business law and criminal law. Finally, it is also discussed on the patentability of software....

The proposal of ACTA which tried to establish new international standards for the intellectual property rights enforcement has gained extraordinary amount of attention among the academic and general public and particularly in the European Union caused many concerns and criticisms. This paper attempts to put ACTA in the broader context of the intellectual property legal framework. ACTA's foundations are described, its content discussed in detail and the most frequently mentioned deficiencies and possible risks critically evaluated.

The principle of territoriality is a truism in intellectual property (IP) law. A premise underlying the principle is the right of each state to determine the extent to which IP rights exist and are protected within its own territory to fulfil its own economic, social and cultural policy goals. This is done by giving a right to prevent others from doing within the protected territory any of the acts that are exclusively reserved to the right holder under the IP statute that granted or protects the IP right. The principle of territoriality informs that IP rights granted or protected by a state are independent from those granted or protected by other states, and that the rights conferred under each state’s IP law are limited to the territory of that state. As the principle of territoriality neatly allocated jurisdiction among states on a territorial basis, it purportedly obviated the need for private international law. Each state exercised jurisdiction over the infringement of its own rights and applied its own domestic IP law, which served the interests of the states and of the parties. With the increase in the protection and exploitation of IP rights across national borders, infringements do not remain within hermetically sealed national territories. Acts taken in one state can have effects in other states and impair the policies that the rights were designed to fulfil. This raises questions concerning the territorial scope of application of the domestic IP law, that is, whether it is interpreted with respect to a domestic tangible act, effects on a domestic policy goal or both. In addition, the transborder exploitation of IP rights raises questions of private international law with respect to whether states exercise jurisdiction and apply national law to disputes concerning infringements of their domestic rights or whether states exercise jurisdiction and apply national law to disputes arising from acts committed in their territories (or both). These determinations may depend on different factors such as the different interests taken into consideration (e.g. state or party interests), the different legal traditions upon which the legal systems are based and the characteristics and functions of the IP rights themselves. This dissertation compares the interpretation and operation of the principle of territoriality of IP law in the private law resolution of transborder IP infringement disputes in the legal systems of the European Union and the United States, two distinctly different legal systems that have significant trade and investment relations with each other. The comparison shows that while the systems are functionally similar, the principle of territoriality is interpreted and operates somewhat differently in the two legal systems.