Bachelor-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2006.

LL. M. (Intellectual Property Law) / Throughout the history of mankind and the countless ages in which law has found a voice, there has existed a need to achieve and maintain a balance between conflicting interests. In this everchanging and dynamic society the need for a balance is paramount. Although it may seem that the various conflicting interests are predominately of a private nature, many of these conflicting interests have consequences that have a salient impact on social welfare. One such branch of the law in which conflicting interests between various interested parties surface is patent law, and the controversial issue of software programs. The current socio-economic environment has experienced exponential technological growth, with substantial advancements not only in the field of hardware but also in the field of software. However, this same rapid growth is not always true when it comes to the law which, in certain fields may be remarked to unfortunately be lagging behind in the degree of protection it affords. The consequences of this may be dire in the case of technological developments, for it is the protection afforded that is in part responsible for the advancements in technology. This once again draws into account the fine line in the balance of rights between various conflicting interests, namely the protection of an individual’s creativity versus that of social welfare. In certain cases, regardless of how innovative or unique certain discoveries or developments may be, if they are important to the social welfare, then an individual’s rights or need for protection must give way. Having said this, one needs to evaluate where software programs fall within this delicate balance of rights. The legal position with regard to software programs in South African intellectual property law is found within the legislation. Namely, the protection afforded to software programs in the Copyright Act,1 and the exclusion of protection in the Patents Act.2 In light of this, why software programs are expressly excluded from protection in the Patents Act will be analysed. It will also be determined if, and to what extent, the Patents Act can be said to afford protection to software

This thesis is based on three essays in corporate credit risk and economic performance analysis. Corporate bankruptcy prediction using past financial information is well established in the literature. Early studies of corporate bankruptcy prediction mainly applied statistical techniques such as discriminant analysis, logit and probit. Although, some of these models such as logit is still widely popular amongst the academics and practitioners due to its simplicity, the shortcomings of such models for bankruptcy prediction have been noticed and criticised in the literature. One of the main shortcomings is that these models as linear classification approach can not explain the possible non-linear relationship between some accounting ratios and the probability of default (PD). This issue has been addressed in the literature by introducing non-linear statistical techniques such as support vector machines (SVM). The first essay of this thesis, presented in Chapter 2, investigates the performance of SVM in corporate bankruptcy prediction and compares its performance with that of logit. This essay analyses bankruptcy risk for firms in the Asian and Pacific region using a list of financial ratios which covers different aspects of a firm's performance. The financial and credit event information for this analysis is provided by the Risk Management Institute of National University of Singapore (RMI NUS). With respect to forecasting accuracy, the findings of this analysis reveal that on average the SVM displays a higher forecasting accuracy and a more robust performance than the logit. Among several financial ratios suggested as predictors of default, leverage ratios and firm size display a higher discriminating power compared to others. Additionally, an analysis of the relationship between PD and financial ratios is provided. The accounting based models in bankruptcy analysis are mostly based on a set of measures which represents current financial position of the firms. However, these models have no indication of the status of the technology competency of a firm amongst its peers, which could be a more significant factor in the survival of a firm. Therefore, a new measure about level of firm's technological knowledge is required for a more precise assessment of firms future financial performance. Considering the rise in the technological competition and patenting activities since the 1990s and also the important role of accurate credit rating modeling in the financial stability, second essay of this thesis examined in Chapter 3 focuses on the relationship between patent applications, as an output of a firm's technological development, and financial survival. Applying a survival analysis model, this relationship is empirically tested on a longitudinal firm-level data set for the listed firms in the US which matches the patent application data from European Patent Offi ce (EPO) against a set of financial variables provided by RMI NUS. The results of this analysis reveal that patent applications are strong identifiers of low default risk companies. In a further analysis, third essay of this thesis presented in Chapter 4 focuses on the impact of patent applications on firm's economic performance. In contrast to the studies which study the overall patent portfolio indicators as proxy for innovation, on a few aspects of firm performance this essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the effect of individual patent applications on several aspects of firm performance including including profitability, leverage, liquidity, size, credit rating quality and stock return. Using the matched data set of patent application data and economic variables for the US listed firms explained earlier, this essay examines whether changing from non-patenting to patenting status when a firm files its first and subsequent applications is associated with significant changes in its firm's performance and stability. The empirical findings of this essay indicates a higher capitalisation, increased liquidity, a lower leverage and an improve in credit quality for the patenting firms.

In recent years, patent aggregation and patent trolling activities have received growing attention from all over the world because of the controversial nature of such activities. Somehow it becomes a global obsession to presume that such activities or even the existence of PAEs are problematic by nature and need to be redressed via government intervention, partly due to the unpromising situation in the US. This article seeks to explore the nature of such issue and find out the most appropriate way for China to deal with such issue. The author believes that while such activities might at first sight seem problematic, in fact they are legal commercial practice in general, or more specifically, they are merely strategic uses of patents. This article also argues that there are available remedies under both EU and Chinese legal framework to catch the real problematic conducts derived from such activities. Hence it would seem to the author that even though the quantity of such activities is meant to increase in China, there is neither justification nor need to intervene such activities: the existing legal framework is enough to address certain misconducts; and the market is capable of ensuring its own equilibrium.

Magister Legum - LLM / Many critics have questioned whether the protection of the IPRs would benefit developing countries. It was argued in this paper that developing countires have the interest in protecting IPRs as well. However, it was showed that the benefit of this protection can be realized only if there is a fair rule of the game to all players in the multilateral trading system. The general objective of this research was to examine the current status of IPRs protection and the levels of TRIPS compliance by Rwanda in the area of copyright. / South Africa

Diplomová práce se zabývá stanovením hodnoty licence k využití patentované technologie. V teoretické části jsou popsány otázky právní ochrany vynálezů, definuje se pojem ?licence? a jsou uvedeny základní metody oceňování nehmotných statků, z nichž pro ocenění licence byly vybrány: metoda MRCM, pravidlo 25 %, metoda DCF a metoda reálných opcí. Praktická část je zaměřena na aplikaci vybraných metod oceňování s použitím reálných údajů konkrétního podniku. Z provedeného srovnání výsledků vyplývá, že metoda reálných opcí je pro účely hodnocení tohoto typu nehmotných statků nejvhodnější.

Diplomová práce na téma ocenění nehmotného majetku pomocí modelu kompenzace rizika získáním vyššího výnosu z nehmotného majetku. Nehmotný majetek je oceňován na základě modelu TRRU, který je odvozen z Black-Scholesova modelu. Práce se soustředí na nehmotný majetek a opce. Úkolem je zjistit, zda existuje spojitost mezi opcemi a nehmotným majetkem, tak, aby se nehmotný majetek dal ocenit pomocí opční logiky.

Práce informuje o vývoji, financování a tvorbě vědecko-výzkumné politiky EU. Je zde poskytnuta analýza stavu vědy a výzkumu v členských státech EU a provedeno porovnání s USA a Japonskem. Pozornost je věnována velice diskutovaným problémům jako jsou Patent Společenství a vznikající Evropský technologický institut. Dále je zhodnoceno zapojení do 6. rámcového programu v jednotlivých státech EU a komparace mezi těmito státy.

This diploma thesis is dedicated to the European patent with unitary effect and reviews effects of the approval of the unitary patent package for clarity, time demands and financial aspects of patent protection. The thesis also deals in detail with assessment of changes in the language question in connection with the regulation of translation or in the event of a dispute concerning a European patent with unitary effect. It further assess changes resulting from the ratification of the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court and its impact on financial costs and time demands of patent litigation for the patent applicant. In the practical part the author conducts a party interested in unitary patent protection through the process, procedure for filing and communication with Industrial Property Office and the European Patent Office, from the filing of a application for a Unitary patent until the grant of a Unitary patent.

No description available.