Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Investor-State Arbitration: Underlying Challenges and Perspectives

This article provides an analysis of existing international mechanisms for protecting intellectual property rights and concludes whether investment arbitration can be an effective forum for resolving intellectual property disputes. It focuses on an examination of the scope of intellectual property rights protection by bilateral investment agreements, as well as the specifics of the investment dispute resolution procedure. In addition, the analysis includes an assessment of the territoriality principle of intellectual property rights and its application in Ukrainian law, as well as an examination of international investment treaties concluded with Ukraine to determine the scope of protection afforded to intellectual property.

Does intellectual property rights protection affect UK and US outward FDI and earnings from FDI? A sectoral analysis

PurposeDespite decades of research, the relationship between intellectual property rights (IPRs) and foreign direct investment (FDI) remains ambiguous. Using a recently developed patent enforcement index (along with a broader IPR index) and a large sectoral country-to-country FDI dataset, the authors revisit the FDI-IPR relationship by testing the impact of IPRs on UK and US outward FDI (OFDI) flows as well as earnings from outward FDI (EOFDI).Design/methodology/approachThe authors use disaggregated data for up to 9 distinct sectors of economic activity from both the US and UK for OFDI flows and EOFDI, for a panel of up to 42 developed and developing countries over sample periods from 1998 to 2015. The authors employ a panel fixed effects (FE) approach that allows exploiting the longitudinal properties of the data using Driscoll and Kraay's (1998) nonparametric covariance matrix estimator.FindingsThe authors do not find any consistent evidence in support of the hypothesis that countries' strength of IPR protection or enforcement affects inward FDI, or that sector of investment matters. The results prove robust to sensitivity checks that include an alternative broader measure of IPR strength, analyses across sub-samples disaggregated according to the strength of countries' IPRs as well as developing vs developed economies and an extended specification accounting for dynamic effects of the response of FDI to both previous investment levels and IPR (patent) protection.Originality/valueThe authors make use of the largest most granular sectoral country-to-country FDI dataset employed to date in the analysis of the FDI-IPR nexus with disaggregated data for OFDI and EOFDI across up to 9 distinct sectors of economic activity from both the US and UK The authors employ a more sophisticated measure of IPR strength, the patent index proposed by Papageorgiadis et al. (2014), which places emphasis on the effectiveness of enforcement practices as perceived by managers, together with the overall administrative effectiveness and efficiency of the national patent system.

Intellectual Property Rights Protection

This chapter provides background on China’s intellectual property rights (IPR) system. It explains the surge in patenting activity in China over the past two decades. Given the central role played by universities and public research organizations, the chapter details the legislative progress made in management of intellectual property with respect to technology transferred from these two key actors in China’s innovation system. The chapter also outlines the challenges that still remain with regard to management of intellectual property and patent licensing on the part of Chinese universities and public research organizations. Finally, the chapter documents the most recent legislative changes in China’s IPR system in order to strengthen it further.

Some Problematic Issues of Judicial Protection of Copyright and Related Rights Violated in the Information and Telecommunications Network

Russian legislation provides for measures of civil protection of infringed intellectual property rights. Protection measures include, for example, restricting access or deleting materials that are used in information and telecommunication networks, including the Internet, if such use violates copyright or related rights. During the period of application of the legislation concerning the protection of copyright and related rights violated in information and telecommunication networks, certain judicial practice has already been formed and certain approaches have been developed. But the introduction of new technologies, the use of new services in information and telecommunication networks creates new uncertainties. The purpose of this article is to identify problematic aspects that require not only additional theoretical research, but also, possibly, changes in legislation. Based on the analysis of the legislation on intellectual property and information protection, as well as judicial practice, some problematic issues have been identified that arise in judicial consideration of cases related to copyright and related rights infringement. Problematic issues include, in particular, the use without the permission of the copyright holder of copyright and related rights objects placed in cloud services, indication in judicial decisions of the domain name of the website or other network resource, the possibility of an unlimited ban on placement on a certain website or other network resource of the object copyright and related rights.

Problematic issues of intellectual property rights protection in sports

mportant, given the growing commercialization of this area. The article considers the main institutions of intel-lectual property law and current methods of protection of intellectual property rights related to sports. Problematic issues of protection of copyright and related rights by primary and derivative subjects of copyright are analyzed, with potential copyright infringement of other property owners. The peculiarities of the distribution of property rights for different types of broadcasts of sports competitions are considered. Problematic issues of combining several objects of intellectual property law in audiovisual works at the same time, namely objects of patent law, trademarks and trade names, are investigated. Sports photography is considered separately as a special subspecies of copyright, which has its own specifics to improve the quality of the accompanying effect for sports competitions. Emphasis is placed on increasing the number of patent law objects in sports, namely utility models and industrial designs. Attention is paid to the use of objects of patent law in sports activities in other areas of society. Attention is paid to expanding the number of means of individualization of participants in civil turnover, goods and services. This is reflected in the increase in the registration of not only trademarks associated with sports organizations, but also with personal trademarks of athletes. Different types of trademarks that can be used in sports are considered: verbal trademarks, pictorial, combined, sound. The peculiarities of the use of other objects of intellectual property, such as know-how, are considered. It is concluded that the legal approaches to the use and protection of intellectual property rights in the digital age and the formation of these objects as one of the key assets in the activities of sports organizations, which should improve the quality of sports products at all levels.