Intellectual Property Asia

PC World reports that Taiwan is to set up a specialised court for Intellectual Property Matters. Taiwan has long had problems with Intellectual Property issues and has been accused both by the US and the EU of ignoring infringements. Certainly experience in other countries shows that specialised courts can help in enforcing IP rights. Many judges are frightened by what they see as the combination of legal and technical issues and fail to realise the value of IP rights. Often they see "monopolies" which they consider inherently bad and so should be excluded - the reason behind the monopoly then becomes less significant.

Labels: Taiwan

Philips has complained to the European Commission that Taiwan's compulsory licences for patents on recordable CDs (CDR) infringe the Trade Barriers Regulation and are not in accordance with TRIPS. Philips claims to have offered seven out of the eight manufacturers a licence on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Art 31 (f) of the TRIPS Agreement clearly states that such compulsory licences shall be predominantly for the supply of the domestic market. However, over 80% of the recordable CDRs are exported.

This seems to be to be a fairly clear violation of the TRIPS agreement - industrialised countries like Taiwan really should not be granting compuslory licences to help their local industry. Philips developed the CDR standard and should be entitled to their fair share of the exploitation. It is surely unacceptable for a developed country to invoke compulsory licence provisions without good reason.

Labels: CDR, Compulsory Licence, India US Patent Office USPTO, Philips, Recordable CD, Taiwan