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Methods for a first party to acquire and assert a patent property against a second party are disclosed. The methods include obtaining an equity interest in the patent property. The methods further include writing a claim within the scope of the patent property. The claim is written to cover a product of the second party where the product includes a secret aspect. The methods further include filing the claim with a patent office. The methods sometimes include offering a license of the patent property to the second party after the patent property issues as a patent with the claim. The methods sometimes include asserting infringement of the claim by the second party after the patent property issues as a patent with the claim. The methods sometimes include negotiating a cross-license with the second party based on the assertion of infringement of the claim, where under the cross-license the first party obtains a license to an intellectual property right from the second party. The methods sometime include attempting to obtain a monetary settlement from the second party based on the assertion of infringement of the claim.

The strategy contains more than thirty concrete recommendations for improvement, falling into six main categories. First, we will lead by example. Specifically, we will work to ensure that we do not mistakenly purchase or use illegal products. Second, the strategy underscores that this Administration supports transparency. That includes transparency in our development of enforcement policy, information sharing, and reporting of law enforcement activities at home and abroad. Third, we will improve coordination and thereby increase efficiency and effectiveness of law enforcement efforts at the Federal, state and local level, of personnel stationed overseas and of our international training efforts. Fourth, we will work with our trading partners and within international organizations to better enforce American intellectual property rights in the global economy. In that regard, we will initiate a comprehensive review of current efforts in support of U.S. businesses that have difficulty enforcing their intellectual property rights in overseas markets, with a particular focus on China. Fifth, we must secure our supply chain. To achieve this most important goal, we will take a close look at the unique problems posed by foreign-based websites and other entities that provide access to counterfeit or pirated products, and develop a coordinated and comprehensive plan to address them. We will make sure our law enforcement has the authority it needs to secure the supply chain and also encourage industry to work collaboratively to address unlawful activity on the internet, such as illegal downloading and illegal internet pharmacies. Sixth, and finally, we will make sure we spend your money wisely, a process we have already begun. To do that, we have, and will continue to collect and track the amount of money we spend on intellectual property enforcement per year. We will use this information to map out the most effective way to fight this theft.

"The common Western narrative of China is of a country whose businesses unfairly compete by stealing intellectual property from others and making money off of copycat technology. While undoubtedly a large amount of IP theft does happen in China, its hard to believe that anyone can look at China and not see innovation everywhere. I've noticed that this question of innovation in China comes up often among Western observers of China. Why? Do we feel that the playing field is unfair? Are we in the U.S. desperately looking for signs of an enduring competitive advantage even as we've shipped our entire manufacturing base overseas? I'm not sure, but the topic sure comes up a lot. Yes, China can innovate, but what kind of innovation? Jacob Hsu (Symbio) remarked that in Silicon Valley, investors and entrepreneurs are looking for "business model" innovation, which I interpreted to mean a new product that creates new markets. He characterized Chinese innovation as mostly incremental "technology" innovation in the past, but that increasing we were seeing highly innovative companies emerge, such as Tencent. He also highlighted the phenomenon of "shanzhai" as an example of innovation on a much smaller scale. The "shanzhai" consumer electronics economy in China is rapidly creating next generation connected devices out of laptop and mobile phone components, and that in most cases the minimum scale required to produce these units can be as small as a few hundred units to make money. Conventional wisdom equates intellectual property protection with innovation. But the "shanzhai" phenomenon challenges this idea. Could the lack of intellectual property protection create opportunities to remix, modify and mashup existing technology that creates an "innovation capability" for China's entrepreneurs even as the lack of IP protection prevents them from fully capitalizing on their successes (because the next guy will just rip them off)? In this

The latest debate in the legal world is that intellectual property right (IPR) laws, meant to protect original creations, are serving private and not public interest. In order to highlight this fact, two students from Gujarat National Law University (GNLU), Gandhinagar, have authored a book on IPR laws. The book, Copyright Law Deskbook Knowledge, Access and Development, by Akhil Prasad and Aditi Agarwala examines the growing significance of IPR in today's knowledge-based economy. "In the chapter 'Debunking the Myth,' we have argued that the term intellectual property is a misnomer and should be replaced with the term intellectual asset. The term 'property' is tilted more towards private interests," says Prasad. The duo has also drawn attention to the fact that currently converting any book into Braille comes under copyright infringement and should be changed. "Whenever you convert a book into any other form without the author's knowledge, it is infringement of the copyright law and this holds true for books converted into Braille as well. Since it is difficult to take permission for each book before it is converted into Braille, we have drawn attention to the fact that this issue needs to be addressed," says Agarwala. Both Prasad and Agarwala started taking interest in IPR laws while pursuing their internship in Mumbai. "We had prepared an exhaustive 70-page petition on IPR during our internship. When we showed it to our former registrar he suggested we convert it into a booklet. However, we soon realised that there was a lot to write about and many issues needed to be addressed. So, we decided to author a 400-page book instead," says Agarwala.

His show also marks a new high point for China's "shanzhai" culture. Shanzhai, which literally means "mountain fortress" and implies banditry and lack of state control, refers to China's vast array of name-brand knockoffs. Shanzhai versions of Apple Inc.'s iPhone, for example, include the HiPhone, the SciPhone and the deliberately misspelled citrus-themed iOrgane. Recently, the definition of shanzhai has expanded. On China's Internet, blogs, bulletin boards and news sites carry photos of automobiles jerry-rigged to run on railroad tracks ("shanzhai trains"), fluffy dogs trimmed and dyed to look like the national mascot ("shanzhai pandas") and models of the Beijing Olympic Games' National Stadium made out of sticks ("shanzhai Bird's Nest"). A property developer in Nanjing, hoping to lure business and buzz, set up storefront facades with logos such as "Haagon-Bozs," "Pizza Huh," "Bucksstar Coffee," "KFG" and "McDnoald's." Images of what became known as "Shanzhai Street" spread rapidly online. Once a term used to suggest something cheap or inferior, shanzhai now suggests to many a certain Chinese cleverness and ingenuity. Shanzhai culture "is from the grass roots and for the grass roots," says Han Haoyue, a media critic in Beijing, who sees it as a means of self-expression. "It gives people another choice and the possibility of resisting dominant cultural values." Chinese authorities appear to regard shanzhai warily, especially when it comes to intellectual property issues. "The shanzhai culture as a celebration of the DIY [do it yourself] spirit or as a parody to mainstream culture can add fun to our daily lives," said one recent editorial in an official state newspaper. "However, we should remain vigilant against it as a justification for rip-off products."

"In this article the author examines the impact that copyright law has on the issue of censorship and government regulation of mass media. The author states that copyright legislation pits international media conglomerates that control the availability of their products, against the consumer right to have access to information resources at a reasonable charge. It is suggested that the court cases Huntsman v. Soderbergh and Universal Studios v. Reimerdes tilted the advantage toward the proprietors of mass media outlets and away from consumers."

The WIPO Broadcasting Treaty (officially, the WIPO Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations) is a proposal within the World Intellectual Property Organization to give broadcasters intellectual property rights in their signals, in addition to the copyrights held by the creators of the works. Public Knowledge opposes the treaty, as it would create numerous conflicts with existing copyright law and policy in the US, as well as creating an additional hurdle for any users of broadcast content.

"Today I want to make three points about the theory of access to knowledge. First, Access to Knowledge is a demand of justice. Second, Access to Knowledge is both an issue of economic development and an issue of individual participation and human liberty. Third, Access to Knowledge is about intellectual property, but it is also about far more than that."

Contributors consider the concept of the commons historically and offer an analytical framework for understanding knowledge as a shared social-ecological system. They look at ways to guard against enclosure of the knowledge commons, considering, among other topics, the role of research libraries, the advantages of making scholarly material available outside the academy, and the problem of disappearing Web pages. They discuss the role of intellectual property in a new knowledge commons, the open access movement (including possible funding models for scholarly publications), the development of associational commons, the application of a free/open source framework to scientific knowledge, and the effect on scholarly communication of collaborative communities within academia, and offer a case study of EconPort, an open access, open source digital library for students and researchers in microeconomics. The essays clarify critical issues that arise within these new types of commons-and offer guideposts for future theory and practice.

Sony has been sued for patent infringement for its Blu-Ray technology once again, this time by California intellectual property company Orinda IP USA.In May 2007, a company called Target Technology sued Sony, alleging that Blu-ray infringed on patents discussing the reflective materials used on optical discs. The suit from Orinda, filed on August 20, involves the method of reproducing data on "disk-shaped media," namely Blu-ray discs.

China's largest Internet search engine, Baidu, was said to be "responsible for the vast majority of illegal downloading of music in China, deriving significant advertising revenue." But last month China issued an IPR protection plan involving 28 ministries and organizations that had 170 concrete measures to fight copyright infringement. Also, the Supreme People's Court raised compensation for victims from 500,000 yuan ($73,000) to more than 1 million yuan ($146,000). Last year, China closed 192 websites that profited from copyright infringement and uncovered 5719 cases of copyright infringement, Commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office Tian Lipu said.

In a new tack against piracy, Microsoft Corp. will make a series of investments in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, which has promised to clamp down on illegitimate software. Microsoft will build two new technology centers and make other investments in the wealthy city on China's east coast, with the aim to establish a model city where intellectual-property rights have greater protections than elsewhere in China. In October, Microsoft started sending out software updates that turned users' computer wallpapers black if they had a pirated Windows operating system, a move that sparked anger among some Chinese users.

"The WTO Analytical Index". Basically, a single document containing both the text of TRIPS as well as its interpretation by various countries.

A landmark study by the Institute of European Media Law (EML) found that a levy on internet usage legalising non-commercial online exchanges of creative works conforms with German and European copyright law, even though it requires changes in both. The German and European factions of the Green Party who had commissioned the study will make the "culture flat-rate," as the model is being called in Germany, an issue in their policies. The global debate on a new social contract between creatives and society is getting more pronounced by the day. Two models are emerging: a free-market approach based on private blanket licences and voluntary subscriptions, and a legal licence approach based on exceptions in copyright law and mandatory levies, that now has been proven legally feasible and appropriate by the EML study.

"The internet was created to share and distribute data. It's the whole reason the world wide web exists. Of course some of that data is going to be copyright-protected work. If it can be digitized, it can, and will, be shared. What continues to amaze me is how freaked-out authors are by this. The thought that someone is sharing their work--without paying for it--seems to evoke the same reaction as having someone hack your bank account and drain your life savings."

"The Three Laws of Open Government Data: 1. If it can't be spidered or indexed, it doesn't exist 2. If it isn't available in open and machine readable format, it can't engage 3. If a legal framework doesn't allow it to be repurposed, it doesn't empower"

"Oded Shenkar, Professor of Business at Ohio State University, has written widely on the Chinese economy, notably in his acclaimed book "The Chinese Century" (2004). He has argued that China has been one of the main drivers and a primary beneficiary of the emergence of a 'copycat economy', where imitators increasingly win over innovators in capturing economic value. It's a subject he explores further in his new book, "Copycats: How Smart Companies Use Imitation to Gain Strategic Edge" (Harvard Business Press). In this talk, he will discuss whether Chinese businesses will, in the coming years, succeed in adding innovation to their repertoire, and whether this could result in a hybrid imitation/ innovation formula which will enable them to trump the competitive advantage of the world's major multinationals - or whether these multinationals will respond by learning the art of imitation themselves. Edwin Chan of the Harvard Design School and Tony Chen of Jones Day in Shanghai will also join in the debate on innovation and imitation in China. Moderated by Russell Flannery, Shanghai Bureau Chief of Forbes magazine."

"First of all, keep in mind that it's not only stickers-or, for that matter, PCs and dishwashers and insurance policies and designer coffee-that become commodities. Every organization faces the challenge. IBM is discovering that even its traditional discrete consulting services are slowly becoming commoditized, a term IBM itself uses. Companies like Wipro-based in Bangalore, India-are replicating some of IBM's consultative offerings at much lower prices, which is why, to IBM's chagrin, companies like Louis Vuitton and Target are turning to Wipro for basic information technology and data-management expertise."

"While appreciating the need for stopping "Software Piracy", the attention of the Government should however be drawn to long term strategies to make Piracy un economical to both the "Pirate" and the "Consumer". The industry has seen a dramatic reduction of pirated copies of Windows since its prices were brought down. The continuation of piracy in other software is to a large extent a result of unreasonable pricing by manufactures. Prices are being determined by them based on their costs and profit requirements rather than the utility value of the software. For example, how many home users can justify the need to buy a Office 2000 paying say around Rs 20,000 which is the cost of the entire hardware system they have bought?. Most offices would find it uneconomical to buy software at such costs. "