EDC: Virtual Export Solutions Summit – November 2, 2010

(Export Development Canada)

Why does the global economic environment seem so uncertain? Do you understand the risks and barriers to trade and how they can be managed? Do you know your intellectual property rights?

Learn the answers on November 2, 2010. Export Development Canada (EDC) will present Export Solutions Summit, a free virtual conference and exhibition intended to provide Canadian exporters with information, tips and resources that will help them succeed in offshore markets.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 – 12:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. (EST)
Topics will include:

• Global Export Forecast (Fall)
• Seeing the Forest for the Trees – Case Study
• Intellectual Property When Entering New Markets

Register here fore this FREE virtual event.

INTERPOL and Hong Kong Customs Join Forces to Improve Regional Police and Customs Anti-Counterfeiting Co-operation

(Web Newswire)

Greater emphasis on the leadership role of police and customs and the benefits of working collaboratively is the focus of the 2010 International Law Enforcement Intellectual Property (IP) Crime Conference which opened today (October 19) in Hong Kong.

The conference is the first to be held in Asia and brings together some 500 law specialist IP crime investigators, prosecutors and private sector investigators from 48 countries. Co-hosted by INTERPOL and Hong Kong Customs in partnership with Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL), the three-day event (19-21 October) concentrates on collective efforts to work together to break organized crime. It will include a series of operational workshops to enable subject matter experts to discuss how all those affected by counterfeiting and piracy can better work together to break up the organized criminal gangs which manufacture and distribute fake goods on a regional and increasingly global scale. Read more here.

Related: Text of AG Holder's Remarks Before Intellectual Property Summit in China

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Targeting Counterfeit Merchandise

(Fanhouse.com)

The NFL and other pro sports leagues are working with federal authorities to curb the flow of counterfeit products, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently announced.

ICE agents based in New Orleans investigated vendors and confiscated more than 1,400 counterfeit hats, t-shirts and jerseys worth approximately $210,000. While most of the merchandise included faked NFL gear, counterfeit NBA, MLB and NASCAR products were also seized along with bogus Duracell batteries and John Deere products. Read more here.

U.S. Says Protecting IP Rights a Top Trade Priority

(Reuters – Doug Palmer)

“Let’s be clear: IP (intellectual property) theft in overseas markets is a job killer, and it’s an export killer,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a speech to mark World Intellectual Property Day. As the United States encourages companies to pour more money into the development of environmentally friendly green technologies, “we must remain vigilant that the investments that American inventors make are not undermined by lax enforcement of intellectual property rights,” Kirk said. Trade in counterfeit goods costs tens of billions of dollars to the United States alone.

A study done for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimated that industries including chemicals, petroleum, computer equipment, communications, semiconductors, autos, medical equipment and aerospace technologies which rely heavily on patents and other forms of intellectual property pay their workers about 60 percent more than non-IP-based industries. IP industries also account for about 60 percent of total U.S. exports, rising to $910 billion in 2007 from $665 billion in 2000, and about 65 percent of U.S. employment in sectors involved in trade, the NDP Consulting study found. Read more here.

New .co Top Level Domain to be Made Available

(David M. Silverman, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP)

The .co top level domain (TLD) is being opened to the general public, and one can envision a run on registrations similar to that experienced for .com. It is easy to see why the Colombia country code, formerly available in that country only, may become very popular in the U.S. and elsewhere. For one thing, .co is the standard abbreviation for "company." It is also a very common misspelling of .com. It has been estimated that google.co gets 15,000 hits per day by mistake.

From April 26 until June 10, a window will open in which only registered trademark owners will be able to register their marks in the .co TLD. Beginning in July, however, .co will be opened to the general public. We suggest that any companies with registered marks protect those marks in the .co TLD in April, and those that do not should register their call signs, company names or nicknames as soon as possible in July. If someone else registers your call sign or company name in the .co TLD before you do, it could be very difficult and costly to recover it. Read more here.

Infineon Seeks to Block U.S. Chip Imports by Elpida

(Susan Decker — Bloomberg)

Infineon AG, Europe’s second-largest chipmaker, filed a patent-infringement complaint that seeks to block U.S. imports of computer-memory chips by Japan’s Elpida Memory Inc.

In a complaint filed Feb. 19 with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, Infineon claims Elpida infringes four patents related to dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, which acts as the main memory in computers.

“Infineon has always been at the forefront of advanced semiconductor processing technologies,” Hermann Eul, an Infineon management board member, said in a statement. “We will protect our intellectual-property rights, which arise from our commitment to cutting-edge research and development.”

Should it win the case, Infineon might be able to shut Elpida, Japan’s biggest DRAM maker, out of the U.S. market. The global market for DRAM chips is expected to surge by more than 40 percent this year to $31.9 billion as prices rise and demand for personal computers recovers, research firm ISuppli Corp. said last week. Read more here.

EU Demands in Free Trade Talks Would Retool Our Copyright Laws

(Michael Geist — Toronto Star)

Earlier this year, Canada and the European Union announced plans to negotiate a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), possibly the biggest Canadian trade negotiations since NAFTA. The first round of talks took place in Ottawa in October, yet the treaty has generated practically no public scrutiny.

That may change following the leak last week of the European Union's proposed intellectual property chapter.

Simply put, the EU demands target the entire Canadian economy. They include increased patent protection for pharmaceutical companies, heightened support for famous trademarks and new rules for industrial designs. Read more here.

Updated Informed Compliance Publication on IPR Enforcement

(World Trade Interactive)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has made available on its website an updated informed compliance publication on CBP’s enforcement of intellectual property rights. This publication includes sections on the counterfeit and “confusingly similar” use of trademarks, parallel imports, Lever rule protection, copyright infringement, exclusion orders, criminal enforcement, IPR recordation, disclosure of information, penalties, and importer remedies following seizure.

U.S.–EU Publish Joint Brochure, Web Toolkit for Trademark, Copyright Owners

(CBP)

To promote strong and effective border enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and customs officials from the European Union have jointly developed a brochure and Web toolkit to assist trademark and copyright owners in preparing information to help U.S. and EU customs agencies determine whether goods are counterfeit or pirated.

Customs officials from the U.S. and EU announced joint publication of these two documents at a U.S.-EU IPR working group meeting held last week at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The meeting attendees included representatives from U.S. and European industry and trade associations, and officials from the U.S. government including the United States Trade Representative, Department of Commerce, Department of State, Library of Congress Copyright Office, CBP and EU officials from the Directorate Generals of Trade, Enterprise, and the Customs Union.

The U.S.-EU brochure titled “Protecting Intellectual Property Rights at Our Borders” is a brochure of basic information for trademark and copyright owners on working with customs officials in the U.S. and the EU. It provides them with information on how to protect themselves from the serious global problem of counterfeiting and piracy. Suggested protection includes the registration and recording of IPR, product identification training guides, and sharing of intelligence on suspect shipments.

The joint customs Web toolkit provides a single set of guidelines for trademark and copyright owners to design web-based product to determine whether goods are counterfeit or pirated. These toolkits provide information to customs officials to assist them in determining whether suspect shipments are counterfeit or pirated.

Other joint projects include Operation Infrastructure, the first joint IPR border enforcement operation undertaken by U.S. and EU customs authorities. The operation fulfilled a key deliverable of the U.S.-EU IPR Action Strategy. Targeting semiconductors and network hardware, the operation ran from November 26, 2007 through December 14, 2007, and resulted in the seizures of more than 360,000 counterfeit integrated circuits and computer network components bearing more than 40 different companies’ trademarks.

Officials are continuing discussions on future joint operations. For more information visit the CBP website

Can They Do That? Policing Your Intellectual Property on the Internet

(Mondaq – Lisa Martz, McCarthy Tétrault)

As more and more commerce is conducted online, it has become increasingly important to monitor the Internet for activities that infringe a company’s intellectually property rights. In fact, the ease with which electronic material can be copied, coupled with an attitude of indifference amongst many online operators regarding the legality of their activities, makes the Internet a zone that is particularly ripe for infringement.

Once a brand is recognized to have value, it is inevitable that unauthorized third parties will do what they can to make money from it on the Internet. By now, most companies have registered for themselves an Internet address (referred to as a “URL” or domain name”) that has as its dominant or only element their key brand or trade-mark (e.g., http://mccarthy.ca ), and are using this address to post a website that promotes their business. However, brand owners need to be aware that the more successful their online presence, the more likely it is that someone is seeking to trade on the Internet traffic looking for the brand owner’s site.

Cyber-squatting is the term used to describe the registration of a domain name that incorporates the trade-mark of another. Although many Internet users rely on search engines (such as Google and Yahoo) to locate a website, studies show that a significant number of Internet users look for a website by way of “direct navigation,” i.e., by guessing at the Internet address and typing it into their web browser. Where a brand allows for multiple logical formulations of a website address (e.g., www.mccarthy.ca, www.mccarthys.ca, or www.mccarthytetrault.ca), the potential for exploitation by unauthorized parties abounds. The typos that inevitably occur when Internet users attempt to type a brand name into their browser (e.g., www.mcarthy.ca) provide another opportunity for brand exploitation (sometimes referred to as “typo-squatting”).

Read the complete article here.

Canadian Intellectual Property Law for Dummies

(IE Canada)

Miltons IP (http://www.miltonsip.com/), an Ottawa-based intellectual property law firm, today announced the release of Canadian Intellectual Property Law For Dummies, co-authored by company founder, Neil Milton.

Data released last year indicates that Canada is faring poorly at commercializing intellectual property, when compared with its industrialized counterparts around the world. A report by the Conference Board of Canada on Innovation released in October 2008, ranked Canada 13th of 17 countries in triadic patents per million population, defined as “those submitted for the same invention to patent offices in the U.S., E.U., and Japan.” The report referred to patenting as “a means of gauging how well countries transform knowledge into useable inventions,” and recommended that if Canada is to improve its standing in the world, there must be “more invention and patenting of inventions at home, as well as more strategic patenting of inventions from elsewhere.”

“Countries like Sweden are filing patents and trademarks at a rate at least four times that of Canada, despite the fact that we’re an intelligent, industrialized nation,” said Neil Milton, author. “Part of the reason for this innovation gap is that individuals are daunted by intellectual property and unaware of how to protect their ideas and how to make money from them.

“If we can provide Canadian small business owners and inventors with a solid understanding of the basics of intellectual property, more will take action to protect their IP and exercise their rights, which is good not only for the individual, but the Canadian economy as a whole.”

Miltons IP joined together with Wiley, the publisher of the popular For Dummies reference book series to create a resource for Canadians that outlines core intellectual property rights, how to make money from IP (whether your own or others), and a series of checklists.

The book contains a primer on the various types of intellectual property assets, from patents and trademarks, to copyrights and industrial designs. Each of the introductory chapters deals with one type of protection, provides definitions, pros and cons and instructs how to protect one’s IP rights. Later chapters discuss how to profit from IP and how to enforce one’s IP rights. A chapter on deriving income from someone else’s IP through licensing follows later in the book, with the final chapter dispelling some common misconceptions about IP.

Export Development Canada, Canada’s export credit agency that provides financing, insurance and risk management solutions to help Canadian exporters and investors expand their international business, recognizes the need for such a resource and will be distributing the book to its clients in the information and communications technology and light manufacturing sectors.

Canadian Intellectual Property Law For Dummies is not available in stores. Rather, it is available free of charge through http://www.canadian-ip.com/. Site visitors enter their mailing address on the site and can expect to receive their copy by mail within 10 business days.

Canada’s Placement on U.S. Piracy List Just Bluster: Lawyers

(CBC News)

But business group warns it could scare off investors

Canada’s addition to a “priority watch list” of countries deemed soft on copyright piracy by the United States shouldn’t and probably won’t perturb the Canadian government, say Canadian researchers who study copyright and Canada-U.S. trade relations.

“We’ve been placed in a spotlight, but the United States has not indicated that it’s prepared to take any action,” said Chi Carmody, a law professor at the University of Western Ontario and the Canadian director of the Canada-United States Law Institute.

“My sense is that Canada’s inclusion on the list this year is not really something that the United States is concerned about in our bilateral relationship, but more as an example to the rest of the world.”

He added that Canada is a sovereign country with the right to make its own decisions, and that he believes the government is committed to a “made in Canada” approach to copyright and intellectual property, “as we should be.”

Canada was among 12 countries that made the “priority watch list” in an annual report released by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative last week on intellectual property rights protection by 77 U.S. trading partners. Canada had long been on the office’s “watch list,” but this is the first time Canada, Algeria and Indonesia made the higher-priority tier long occupied by countries such as China and Russia. Read more here.

ICC Keynote Focuses on CBP’s Partnerships to Combat Counterfeit Product Importation

(CBP)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of International Trade Assistant Commissioner Daniel Baldwin gave a keynote address today [Thursday] at the International Law Enforcement Intellectual Property Crime Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada highlighting how partnerships are an integral part of CBP’s strategy to combat the illegal importation of counterfeit goods.

“All of us face a common threat from the international trafficking in counterfeit and pirated goods, Assistant Commissioner Baldwin told the group. “It is essential that we work in partnership to identify and disrupt the international distribution networks of these goods.”

Baldwin’s keynote address highlighted CBP’s intellectual property rights enforcement work emphasizing CBP’s partnerships with industry, trading partners and other U.S. government agencies to detect and seize counterfeit goods.

CBP continues to seize a wide range of counterfeit goods with an increasing focus on products that pose a safety threat and could harm consumers.

“At one time, we viewed fake goods primarily as a commercial threat to our economies. We now understand that the trade in fakes also presents equally serious threats to our national security and consumer safety,” said Baldwin.

CBP seizures of counterfeit and pirated goods have risen dramatically. In fiscal year 2007 CBP made 13,657 IPR seizures with a domestic value – the value of fake goods – of more than $196 million, an increase of 27% by value over the previous year. In the last five years, CBP seizures of IPR infringing products has risen about 110%.

The conference was hosted by INTERPOL and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in partnership with Underwriters Laboratories. It focused on law enforcement’s role in IPR enforcement, with the theme of “Working in Partnership Against a Common Threat.”