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LES Asia Pacific is extremely proud that LES
International leadership will come from the Asia Pacific region for the
next two years.
The current President of LES International is Chikao Fukuda, a past
president of LES Japan. Fukuda-san has a plan to visit some
of the societies in the Asia Pacific region during his year and he will
hand over the role of President to Adam Liberman at the LES Pan
European Conference in Amsterdam
in September 2008. Adam, a past President of LESANZ, was elected
to the position of President Elect of LES International during the
delegates meeting in Vancouver.
We are glad Adam's significant contribution to LESI has been recognised
with this appointment.
Adam will officiate as President during the
LESI Conference in Manila, Philippines to be held in Makati City from 7 to 10 June 2009.
By Shona
Foster and Simon Rowell, LESANZ
Asia Pacific candidates compete for the role of WIPO
DG
Fifteen candidates have been nominated to
succeed Kamil Idris as Director-General for WIPO. They include Toufiq Ali, permanent
representative of the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh in Geneva from
Bangladesh; Francis Gurry, Deputy Director-General of WIPO, from
Australia; Enrique Manalo from the Philippines; and Yoshiyuki Takagi
from Japan. The WIPO Coordination Committee will makes its nomination
at the conclusion of its extraordinary general meeting on 13 and 14
May, and the successor will officially take over the role at the
General Assembly in September.
Asian region shows continued growth in PCT filings
Statistics released by WIPO in February show
that, for the fourth year running, the most notable growth in PCT
filings comes from countries in North-East Asia. Japanese electronics manufacturer
Matsushita topped the list of the biggest PCT filers, ousting Philips
Electronics from first place.
Japan and China first and third in patent filings
WIPO’s 2007 World Patent Report, which was
published in August 2007 and provides figures from 2005, shows that
Japan remains the country in which the most patent applications were
filed. China leapt into 3rd place with growth of 32.9%.
Record industry wins copyright case against
Yahoo!China
A Beijing appeal court recently upheld a
decision against Yahoo! China in favour of the International Federation
of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
Yahoo! China had offered mp3 search services that allowed users
to search for and download unlicensed music by a process known as
“deep-linking”. Yahoo! China was ordered to remove all links to
unlicensed music, not just to those provided by the music
companies. On the same day, the
Court dismissed IFPI’s appeal against a decision in favour of Baidu.com
in relation to a similar matter.
AUSTRALIA:
On 1 March 2008, the Australian Trade Practices
(Industry Codes – Franchising) Amendment Regulations 2007 (No. 1)
will come into force. The Regulations enact several changes to
the Franchising Code of Conduct in Australia including:
- Increasing transparency through revisions to
the franchisor disclosure requirements
- Making the code apply to single franchisor
appointments, such as in a master franchise situation
- Prohibiting a franchisor from obtaining a
waiver of any verbal or written representation made by the
franchisor to the franchisee
- Franchisors must give full information about
previous franchisees in a particular territory in a separate
document to be provided with the disclosure documents
- A change in the scope of the franchise agreement
will trigger the renewal/extension provisions of the code, and the
disclosure requirements.
Agreements
currently in place will be unaffected. However any new franchise
agreement entered into, or disclosure documents issued, after 1 March
2008 must comply with the revised code.
HONG KONG:
Proposals to reform arbitration law in Hong Kong
The Hong Kong government has published a
consultation paper proposing to reform arbitration law in the
territory. The proposal is to
adopt the UN’s Model Law on
International Commercial Arbitration as the basis for the new
regime.
Copyright (Amendment)
Ordinance 2007 of Hong Kong
The Copyright
(Amendment) Ordinance 2007 came into effect in July
2007. Although the original
Copyright Ordinance has been substantially amended, here's some of the
more important changes that business end users might be interested to
know about.
(a)
Directors / Partners
Liability
Not yet effective,
but already included in the new legislation is the introduction
of a new criminal offence for directors and partners of
corporations and partnerships which have committed an
infringing act (for instance, by using pirated software).
Those directors
and partners “responsible for the
internal management” of the body corporate or
partnership will be presumed to have authorized the infringing
acts and thus may be criminally liable for copyright infringement
unless he can raise an issue by providing evidence to the
contrary. In this respect, the
courts will consider all factors, in particular whether the relevant
individual (i) has set aside funds and directed someone
in his corporation /partnership to acquire licensed copies or (ii)
incurred actual expenditures in acquiring a sufficient number of
licensed copies.
Alternatively, the individual may show that
he has introduced policies to guard against use of pirated works or
taken action to prevent the use of infringing copies of copyright works
by the corporation or partnership.
(b)
Employee Defense
The good news for employees is
that they will have a specific defense against criminal liability
where they have been supplied with infringing copyright works
for use during the course of their employment. However,
those that can influence the acquisition of infringing
works will not be able to reply on this defense, nor will employees who
have the authority or influence to affect the use or removal of the
infringing works.
(c)
Parallel Importation
The restrictions on the
importation of parallel-imported copies of copyright works by business
end-users have been removed.
However, such restrictions still apply where (i)
the parallel-imported work is used for commercial dealing purposes or
(ii) in the case of parallel-imported copies of movies, TV dramas,
musical sound or visual recordings that are used for broadcasting
in public.
JAPAN:
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is to pass a new bill regarding
“Registration for Comprehensive License".
New
competition laws
In
late 2007 the Japanese Fair Trade Commission introduced new IP
guidelines which set out which types of licensing might fall foul of
competition laws in Japan. Problematic activities include restrictions
on restrictions on research and development; grant-back requirements
for exclusive licences; post-expiration limitations; acts to coerce a
license on the basis of a platform technology; and discriminatory
licensing.
New
registration system for patent licences
In
May 2007 the new system was established under the Act on Special
Measures for Industrial Revitalization, but it will be enforced in the
middle of 2008 after the details of the rules are provided.
NEW ZEALAND:
Digital Technology
discussion paper
On 27 July 2007 the Commerce Committee
released a report recommending the Copyright (New Technologies & Performer’s
Rights) Amendment Bill be passed with a number of amendments. The
amendments include changing the Bill’s name to “Copyright (New
Technologies) Amendment Bill, the insertion of a new section to clarify
that a lawful user of a computer programme may observe, study or test
the functioning of the programme under certain circumstances without
infringing copyright, and amendments to the “format shifting”
recommendation to clarify that the copy must be solely for the personal
use of the person who made it (or a member of his or her household) and
that person must retain possession of the original recording. A
further recommendation would allow copyright owners to contract out of
the format shifting sections. Minor amendments are also recommended
for the sections dealing with ISP liability and TPMs. Finally,
the paper signals the following issues as requiring further review:
off-air recordings of television programmes to educational
establishments, directors’ rights, orphaned works and access to works
for print-disabled persons.
The Commissioning Rule,
Contracts and the Copyright Act 1994
Following the first round of submissions, the
New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development released a further
discussion paper proposing to abolish the commissioning rule and
seeking further submissions on same. This second round of
submissions closed on 28 August 2007. On the issue of copyright
and contract, the same paper announced that no further action would be
taken.
Resale royalty rights for
visual artists
The New Zealand Government has been examining
international developments relating to a resale royalty right for
visual artists and a possible application of such right in New Zealand.
The right allows visual artists to receive a royalty payment each time
their original artwork is resold. In April 2007 the Ministry for
Culture and Heritage prepared a discussion paper entitled “A resale
royalty right for visual artists: options for its possible application
to New Zealand”.
Submissions on the discussion paper closed on 22 June 2007. Of
the submissions made, most were either in favour of, or neutral toward,
the establishment of the right in New Zealand. The
Ministry is currently finalising its analysis of the submissions.
PHILIPPINES:
The Department of Science and Technology, a Department of the National
Government, has been holding consultations with various stakeholders,
including LES Philippines, regarding the adoption of a national
technology transfer policy.
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