Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Intellectual property systems'

Thesis: Ph. D. in Engineering Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, 2017.<br>This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.<br>"June 2017." Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-247).<br>Intellectual property lock-in is a wicked problem particularly pervasive under monopsony market structures, such as the Department of Defense (DoD). However, little research exists on the mechanisms of action that induce intellectual property lock-in. This work postulates the conjuncture of architecture and intellectual property is one such mechanism of action and erects a research methodology to investigate this link. This dissertation began with a review of literature, which revealed more research is needed into basic trends or estimates of magnitude for intellectual property lock-in. To quantitatively frame the magnitude of the problem an investigation was conducted into all DoD contracts for the last eight fiscal years to establish bounds. These results were used to formulate a conceptual model of the problem and suggest the concept of intellectual property architecture, which is the conjuncture of architecture and intellectual property. To investigate links between intellectual property architecture and lock-in, an intermediate-N fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis research approach was formulated and executed using 14 DoD software cases representing over 34 million lines of code. The model used three input conditions: high quality technical architecture, accessible intellectual property architecture, and unlimited rights to study the avoidance of lock-in. The fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis concluded intellectual property architecture or unlimited rights were quasi-necessary conditions for the avoidance of lock-in. Additionally the model yielded both a five condition conservative expression and two condition parsimonious expression for sufficient conditions. From those expressions, this research concludes three direct findings. First, intellectual property architecture is an empirically supported mechanism of action for the avoidance of lock-in. Implying, intellectual property architecture, absent any other explanatory conditions, is sufficient to avoid lock-in. Second, the research herein finds evidence to support a novel taxonomy of intellectual property architectures. Allowing practitioners to understand potential trade-offs between architecture and intellectual property lock-in. Third, intellectual property architecture or unlimited rights is a theoretically supported expression for the avoidance of lock-in. This finding implies that as few as two conditions are required to understand whether a case may, or may not, avoid lock-in.<br>by Christopher W. Berardi.<br>Ph. D. in Engineering Systems

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2012.<br>Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 70-73).<br>The thesis that follows is an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of intellectual property from a policy as well as a strategic perspective. While the discussion that follows is applicable to intellectual property in general, the focus of this thesis is on a particular aspect of intellectual property i.e patents. Policy and strategic perspectives are covered in section I and 11 respectively. The section on policy explores the origin and evolution of intellectual property related policies by discussing key legislation and court cases. The two questions that were most relevant when exploring the policy side of the patent system were: -- Is the intellectual property system hindering or encouraging innovation? -- What changes, if any, are required to make the system more effective? The section on strategy looks at IP strategies (or lack thereof) of three leading companies, Apple, Google and Microsoft. These three companies were selected because of their apparently differing strategies and this cursory judgement was confirmed when the strategies of the companies were put under a microscope. The question that were central while exploring the strategic aspects of intellectual property were: -- How are these three companies coping with the patent system as it exists today? -- What changes can make the strategies employed more effective? The summary section at the end tries to reconcile these two different ways of looking at the intellectual property system into a coherent whole.<br>by Rishi Ahuja.<br>S.M.in Engineering and Management

In many online communities, users reveal innovative and potentially valuable intellectual property (IP) under conditions that entail the risk of theft and imitation. Where there is rivalry and formal IP law is not effective, this would lead to underinvestment or withholding of IP, unless user-organized norms compensate for these shortcomings. This study is the first to explore the characteristics and functioning of such a norms-based IP system in the setting of anonymous, large-scale, and loose-knit online communities. In order to do so, we use data on the Threadless crowdsourcing community obtained through netnography, a survey, and a field experiment. On this basis, we identify an integrated system of well-established norms that regulate the use of IP within this community. We analyze the system's characteristics and functioning, and we find that the "legal certainty" it provides is conducive to cooperation, cumulative effects, and innovation. We generalize our findings from the case by developing propositions aimed to spark further research. These propositions focus on similarities and differences between norms-based IP systems in online and offline settings, and the conditions that determine the existence of norms-based IP systems as well as their form and effectiveness in online communities. In this way, we contribute to the literatures on norms-based IP systems and online communities and offer advice for the management of crowdsourcing communities.

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2011.<br>Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-105).<br>India has established itself well as a powerhouse of talent in Information Technology (IT)/Software services, indicated by its exports of USD 54.33 Billion in 2010. Established in 1980s by the late Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of India at that time, the focus on education and IT has paid rich dividends for the next generation. While a lot has been achieved by Indian entrepreneurs when it comes to software services, the same cannot be said about the Software Product segment which has remained out of focus so far. This is evident from the fact that Software Product based exports have remained less than 2% of the overall IT/Software industry exports so far. Many reasons are obvious and have been well studied in the past, while some are not very obvious and are less well explored. Using this thesis as an opportunity, an attempt has been made to explore these reasons, and some recommendations have been shared for architecting an ecosystem that can help foster Software Product and Intellectual Property (IP) focus.<br>by Vishal Kumar.<br>S.M.in Engineering and Management

Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2015. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT.<br>Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2015. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT.<br>Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (pages 91-93).<br>After Sanofi acquired intellectual property (IP) from bankrupt Pelikan Technologies it desired to leverage the IP to identify a product concept to enhance the company's portfolio. To facilitate the project, a structured opportunity identification process was utilized. This process consisted of four major steps: Problem Framing, Idea Search, Screen, and Refine. Problem Framing formulated the innovation challenge. Idea Search sourced over two dozen potential opportunities that spanned markets and industries. Using a tournament selection approach, the Screen step filtered the opportunities according technical and strategic objectives. This selected an integrated blood measurement device as the opportunity of focus. This leverages the IP to simplify at-home blood testing while simultaneously reducing pain. The Refine step evaluated the opportunity using a framework that assessed markets, product, competitiveness, economics, and risk. The beachhead market is the diabetes market and potential follow-on markets are oncology, multiple sclerosis, rare diseases, and cardio-metabolic diseases. Key technology elements were assembled into a variety of conceptual approaches and evaluated according to market fit. This identified a conceptual approach that integrates all disposable elements (i.e. lancet and blood test element) into a single disposable cartridge that can be inserted into an electronically actuated meter. The projected financial returns in the beachhead market have a positive nominal NPV. NPV sensitivity was calculated based on estimated cost and revenue item variations. In all cases the NPV remains positive, but this highlighted key drivers of economic performance along with risks that need to be resolved in future development work. With key assumptions identified, Sanofi is in an excellent position to decide whether or not to pursue the identified opportunity. In addition, this project acts as a pilot for a structured opportunity identification process within the company and it is recommended that Sanofi adopt a similar process as part of its product development workflow. Finally, the company should adjust resources and financial commitment to ensure full cross-functional teams can be staffed to execute opportunity identification work. These improvements will enable the company to more effectively execute corporate entrepreneurial activities.<br>by Nathan McMullin.<br>M.B.A.<br>S.M.

The proliferation of embedded systems into nearly every aspect of modern infrastructure and society has seen their deployment in such diverse roles as monitoring the power grid and processing commercial payments. Software intellectual property (SWIP) is a critical component of these increasingly complex systems and represents a significant investment to its developers. However, deeply immersed in their environment, embedded systems are difficult to secure. As a result, developers want to ensure that their SWIP is protected from being reverse engineered or stolen by unauthorized parties. Many techniques have been proposed to address the issue of SWIP protection for embedded systems. These range from secure memory components to complete shifts in processor architectures. While powerful, these approaches often require the development of systems from the ground up or the application of specialized and often expensive hardware components. As a result they are poorly suited to address the security concerns of legacy embedded systems or systems based on commodity components. This work explores the protection of SWIP on heavily constrained, legacy and commodity embedded systems. We accomplish this by evaluating a generic embedded system to identify the security concerns in the context of SWIP protection. The evaluation is applied to determine the limitations of a software only approach on a real world legacy embedded system that lacks any specialized security hardware features. We improve upon this system by developing a prototype system using only commodity components. Finally we propose a Portable Embedded Software Intellectual Property Security (PESIPS) system that can easily be deployed as a framework on both legacy and commodity systems.<br>Master of Science

This research investigates the relationship between those incentives for faculty support of university-industry technology transfer that are governed by university intellectual property policies and technology transfer outcomes at Canadian universities. <br /> Empirical research, chiefly conducted in the United States, has explored the link between the incentives that are governed by IP policies and various outcomes and found that financial incentives are correlated with a variety of outcomes. This research extends the literature by exploring the same underlying relationship, in Canada, where IP policies also determine ownership and control of the development of the IP; some universities retain control over the development and other universities let the ownership and control vest with the inventors. <br />The research question was pursued by conducting three studies, each of which provided a different perspective. The first study seeks to explain cross-institutional patterns in the numbers of patents held by Canadian universities using variables that represent the financial incentives and control offered to faculty inventors by the universities' policies. The second study investigated the impact of a policy change at the University of Toronto, using interrupted time series analysis techniques. The third study investigated the experiences of faculty inventors at the University of Waterloo through indepth interviews and thematic analysis of the resulting qualitative data. <br /> The first, cross-sectional study failed to generate statistically significant results. In the second, longitudinal study, the change from a "university-owns" to an "inventor-owns" policy appeared to have significantly and substantially increased the number of invention disclosures submitted to the University of Toronto by its faculty members. The third, qualitative study suggests that faculty members interpret the incentives governed by intellectual property policies and that this interpretation is shaped by group norms, academic leadership, university culture and the inventors' experiences with technology transfer support organizations. Therefore, Studies 2 and 3 indicate that university intellectual property policies are effective levers with which to stimulate university-industry technology transfer and thus deserve further study. The importance of university factors in Study 3 implies that intellectual property policies must fit with their organizational contexts in order to be productive. <br />This research also has important policy implications. Many governments have been attempting to emulate the American Bayh-Dole Act by introducing or changing national regulations affecting university IP policies. This research suggests that these national regulations may actually depress researcher support for technology transfer and thus the amount of activity at those institutions that would benefit from an alternate policy. In effect, standardization of university IP policies through national regulations may deprive university administrators of an effective lever for encouraging technology transfer on their campuses. This inference will be the focus of further research which will broaden the work documented in this dissertation by exploring the relationship between university IP policies, university-industry technology transfer, and university factors, including culture, across a wider range of universities.

Thesis (S.M. in Technology and Policy)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2010.<br>Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 75-80).<br>The effects of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) on innovation in the field of biotechnology are considered through assessment of their effects on upstream innovation and downstream development. Two case studies involving research tools representing forms of upstream innovation are analyzed to identify factors enabling or hindering downstream innovation. The proprietary technologies of recombinant DNA (rDNA) and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) are assessed in relation to both their development and their diffusion strategies. Factors considered are: the type of IPRs, legal circumstances, the strategy regarding disclosure, whether a basic research exemption exists, enforcement of IPRs, the invention's characteristics, the economic resources available (private vs. public), and the development setting. Assessment of these cases requires consideration of the current intellectual property regime and its associated problems. These principally include the importance of the context (including the legal framework), the strategy adopted by the owners of the IPRs regarding diffusion, the type of development setting, and the invention's characteristics. Ways of dealing with these issues within the traditional IPR systems are assessed, such as patents and trade secrets, for which corresponding types of licenses can provide solutions. Additionally, new approaches are assessed, such as patent pools, clearinghouses, open source models, liability regimes, experimental use exemption, and compulsory licensing. These alternatives are considered both in the United States and under different international regimes. Finally, the potential policy implications of IPRs, both in the United States and internationally, are evaluated with regard to their effects on innovation in biotechnology.<br>by Muriel Eugenia Gonzalez.<br>S.M.in Technology and Policy

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2006.<br>Includes bibliographical references.<br>The impact of intellectual property rights on the production, diffusion and accumulation of scientific knowledge has been a central concern of public policymakers and economists in both public and private institutions, and scholars in management economics and sociology. In this dissertation, I examine the central patenting debates over the role of patenting the life sciences and address a set of interrelated questions: (1) the impact of strategic intellectual property policies of institutions on their cumulative knowledge dissemination, utilization and commercialization; (2) the unique attributes of life science innovations captured by patents generated under different institutional settings; and (3) the degree to which patenting activities impact the rate and trajectories of scientific knowledge accumulation under varying intellectual property conditions. I take as my research setting, the Human Genome Project (HGP) and our mapping of the entire human genome that emerged from the project (as defined in both scientific publications and patents). The HGP was a 13-year, $3.8 billion research effort funded and coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institute of Health, and one of the most significant life science research projects ever undertaken.<br>(cont.) To address the first question, I study the seven key genome centers in the HGP, which produced almost all the genome sequence output and provide an unusually matched and well-controlled natural experiment to examine the impact of different knowledge institutions on the subsequent diffusion of scientific knowledge. To explore the second question, I build on the data set of the population of 4270 gene patents to systematically quantify and analyze the important attributes of these gene-based innovations. Through the construction of a set of validated measures, I specifically characterize the variation in these innovations when made under public versus private institutional settings and compare them to the innovations across broad technology fields from previous studies. To answer the third question, I identify and construct a large-scale, novel data set of 1279 unique patent-paper pairs from the gene patents and apply econometric models to shed light on the degree to which patent grant in the life sciences impacts the rate of follow-on scientific research. I find that publications with matched patent pairs are associated with higher citations on the average. Since only an institutional policy allowing patents results in patents, such policy does not stifle cumulative knowledge dissemination and use. In addition, patents contribute to technological innovation, commercialization and start-up.<br>(cont.) Furthermore, I identified a growing convergence of public/academic and industry innovations in the life sciences especially in terms of their "basicness" and appropriability as characterized by the Pasteur's quadrant, and that variation in institutional setting is associated with differential innovation characteristics. I also find evidence of "technological trajectories", coherence and persistence across various attributes of life science innovations. However, I determine that gene patenting impedes temporal knowledge diffusion and use and decreases citations of paired publications once they are granted and become "visible" to the public, as predicted by the anti-commons effect. I also ascertain that patenting hinders knowledge diffusion and use to a greater degree on private sector authored publications than public ones and for U.S. authored than non-U.S. authored ones, and that corporate patenting has a more adverse impact than public institution patenting. As the first study of its kind to directly test the "patent thicket" conceptualization, I find direct statistical evidence of the adverse effect of "patent thickets" and that the patenting of disease and cancer genes negatively impacts knowledge dissemination and use by follow-on scientists and researchers.<br>by Kenneth Guang-Lih Huang.<br>Ph.D.

In current business affairs, most executive professions require one or several kinds of data consultation in their practice. Nowadays, the majority of data either is or has been digitalized and digital data is defined as information represented in a discrete and discontinuous manner. For accessibility purposes, data are often stored in databases that organize information via design and modeling techniques to facilitate querying. Data retrieval is crucial and if this process lacks efficacy, users either are presented incomplete information or are forced to perform repetitive queries. Intellectual property (IP) lawyers in Brazil are among that group and must regularly access a private database for trademark information. While it contains all the data they require, the database’s querying mechanisms are not tailored for IP law practice. The existing filters and lack of replacement algorithms often yield incomplete results, increasing time and resources dispended. With millions of dollars in potential lawsuits and work-hours, the purpose of this study is to investigate whether an IP-focused querying system could help mitigate this resource waste, facilitating the trademark comparison work of IP lawyers. For this, a new orthographic and phonetically focused querying logic was implemented. ANOVA tests and a questionnaire were used to compare the existing querying mechanism with the new one in terms of time, work satisfaction and querying accuracy. Results indicate the new querying system significantly decreased the amount of searches needed to execute a complete trademark analysis, while lawyers averaged the same amount of time to complete their work. Lawyers also reported higher work satisfaction levels and perceived increase in work efficiency.

As networks become more versatile, the computational requirement for supporting additional functionality increases. The increasing demands of these networks can be met by Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA), which are an increasingly popular technology for implementing packet processing systems. The fine-grained parallelism and density of these devices can be exploited to meet the computational requirements and implement complex systems on a single chip. However, the increasing complexity of FPGA-based systems makes them susceptible to errors and difficult to test and debug. To tackle the complexity of modern designs, system-level languages have been developed to provide abstractions suited to the domain of the target system. Unfortunately, the lack of formality in these languages can give rise to errors that are not caught until late in the design cycle. This thesis presents three techniques for verifying and validating FPGA-based packet processing systems described in a system-level description language. First, a type system is applied to the system description language to detect errors before implementation. Second, system-level transaction monitoring is used to observe high-level events on-chip following implementation. Third, the high-level information embodied in the system description language is exploited to allow the system to be automatically instrumented for on-chip monitoring. This thesis demonstrates that these techniques catch errors which are undetected by traditional verification and validation tools. The locations of faults are specified and errors are caught earlier in the design flow, which saves time by reducing synthesis iterations.

The major themes of this thesis are the impact of Intellectual Property (IP) systems on foreign direct investment spillovers and bilateral FDI flows. This thesis consists of three empirical studies. The first study integrates in the existing theoretical frameworks the distinct effect of the public IP enforcement element of IP systems on FDI horizontal spillovers. By employing a meta-analysis approach and the ordered probit model estimation technique, it finds that the strength of public IP enforcement in a host country has a positive effect on FDI horizontal spillovers but it dampens the positive effect of IP law protection on FDI horizontal spillovers when it becomes too strong. The second empirical study examines the impact of IP systems on FDI vertical spillovers. This study employs a similar conceptual and empirical approach and finds that the strength of public IP enforcement has a positive effect on FDI vertical spilloversbut a negative moderating effect on the relationship between the strength of IP law protection and FDI vertical spillovers. In the third empirical study, a gravity model is applied to test the effect of IP systems on bilateral FDI flows in OECD countries. Using the Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood, it finds both the strength of IP law protection and the strength of public IP enforcement to have a positive effect on bilateral FDI flows. The broad implication of these findings is that countries should strengthen both their IP law protection and enforcement but apply appropriate measures to mitigate the negative effect resulted from excessive IP protection.

1. The context: The European patent system has been affected by substantial changes over the past three decades, which have raised vigorous debates at different levels. The main objective of the present dissertation is to contribute to these debates through an exploratory analysis of different changes in patenting practices – in particular the way applications are drafted and filed to patent offices –, their drivers, association with the value of patents, and potential impact on the patent system. The coming essays are therefore empirical in their essence, but are inspired by economic motivations and concerns. Their originality is threefold: it resides in the novelty of the main questions discussed, the comprehensive database specifically built to address them, and the range of statistical methods used for this purpose. The main argument throughout these pages is that patenting practices have significantly evolved in the past decades and that these developments have affected the patent system and could compromise its ability to fulfil its economic purpose. The economic objective of patents is to encourage innovation and its diffusion through the public disclosure of the inventions made. But their exploitation in the knowledge economy has assumed so many different forms that inventors have supposedly developed new patenting and filing strategies to deal with these market conditions or reap the maximum benefits from their patents. The present thesis aims at better understanding the dimensions, determinants, and some potential consequences of these developing practices.<p><p>2. The evolution: Chapter 2 presents a detailed descriptive analysis of the evolution in the size of patent applications filed to the European Patent Office (EPO). In this chapter, we propose two measures of patent voluminosity and identify the main patterns in their evolution. Based on a dataset with about 2 million documents filed at the EPO, the results show that the average voluminosity of patent applications – measured in terms of the number of pages and claims contained in each document – has doubled over the past 25 years. Nevertheless, this evolution varies widely across countries, technologies and filing procedures chosen by the applicant. This increasing voluminosity of filings has a strong impact on the workload of the EPO, which justifies the need for regulatory and policy actions.<p><p>3. The drivers: The evolution in patent voluminosity observed in chapter 2 calls for a multivariate analysis of its determinants. Chapter 3 therefore proposes and tests 4 different hypotheses that may contribute to explaining the observed inflation in size: the influence of national laws and practices and their diffusion to other countries with the progressive globalization of patenting procedures, the complexification of research activities and inventions, the emergence of new sectors with less established norms and vocabularies, and the construction of patent portfolios. The econometric results first reveal that the four hypotheses are significantly associated with longer documents and are therefore empirically supported. It appears however that the first hypothesis – the diffusion of national drafting practices through international patenting procedures – is the strongest contributor of all, resulting in a progressive harmonization of drafting styles toward American standards, which are longer by nature. The portfolio construction hypothesis seems a less important driver but nevertheless highlights substantial changes in patenting practices. These results raise two questions: Do these evolving patenting practices indicate more valuable patents? Do they induce any embarrassment for the patent system?<p><p>4. Measuring patent value: If the former of these two questions is to be addressed, measures are needed to identify higher value patents. Chapter 4 therefore proposes a review of the state of the art on patent value indicators and analyses several issues in their measurement and interpretation. Five classes of indicators proposed in the literature may be obtained directly from patent databases: the number of countries in which each patent is enforced, the number of years during which each patent has been renewed, the grant decision taken, the number of citations received from subsequent patents, and whether it has been opposed by a third party before the EPO. Because the former two measures are closely connected (the geographical scope of protection and length of maintenance can hardly be observed independently), they have been subjected to closer scrutiny in the first section of chapter 4, which shows that these two dimensions have experienced opposite evolutions. A composite measure – the Scope-Year Index – reveals that the overall trend is oriented downwards, which may suggest a substantial decline in the average value of patents. The second section of chapter 4 returns to the five initial classes of measures and underlines their main patterns. It appears that most of them witness the well-known properties of patent value: a severe skewness and large country and technology variations. A closer look at their relationships, however, reveals a high degree of orthogonality between them and opposite trends in their evolution, suggesting that they actually capture different dimensions of a patent’s value and therefore do not always pinpoint the same patents as being the most valuable. This result strongly discourages the reliance on one of the available indicators only and opens some avenue for the creation of one potential composite index of value based upon the five indicators to maximize the chances of capturing all potentially valuable patents in a large database. The proposed index reflects the intensity of the signal provided by all 5 constituting indicators on the potential value of each patent. Its declining trend reflects a rarefaction of this signal on average, leading to different plausible interpretations.<p><p>5. The links with patent value: Based upon the six indicators of value proposed in chapter 4 (the five classical ones plus the composite), the question of the association between filing strategies and the value of patents may be analysed. This question is empirically addressed in chapter 5, which focuses on all EPO patents filed between 1990 and 1995. The first section presents a comprehensive review of the existing evidence on the determinants of patent value. The numerous contributions in the field differ widely along three dimensions (the indicator of value chosen as dependent variable, the sampling methodology, and the set of variables tested as determinants), which have translated into many ambiguities across the literature. Section 2 proposes measures to identify different dimensions of filing strategies, which are essentially twofold: they relate to the routes followed by patent filings toward the EPO (PCT, accelerated processing), and to their form (excess claims, share of claims lost in examination), and construction (by assembly or disassembly, divisional). These measures are then included into an econometric model based upon the framework provided by the literature. The proposed model, which integrates the set of filing strategy variables along with some of the classical determinants, is regressed on the six available indicators separately over the full sample. In addition, the sensitivity of the available results to the indicator and the sampling methodology is assessed through 18 geographic and 14 industrial clustered regressions and about 30 regressions over random samples for each indicator. The estimates are then compared across countries, industries and indicators. These results first reveal that filing strategies are indicative of more valuable patents and provide the most stable determinants of all. And third, the results do confirm some classical determinants in their positive association with patent value, but highlight a high degree of sensitivity of most of them to the indicator or the sample chosen for the analysis, requiring much care in generalizing such empirical results.<p><p>6. The links with patent length: Chapter 6 focuses on one particular dimension of patent value: the length of patents. To do so, the censored nature of the dependent variable (the time elapsed between the filing of a patent application and its ultimate fall into the public domain) dictates the recourse to a survival time model as proposed by Cox (1972). The analysis is original in three main respects. First of all, despite the fact that renewal data have been exploited for about two decades to obtain estimates of patent value (Pakes and Schankerman, 1984), this chapter provides – to the best of our knowledge – the first comprehensive analysis of the determinants of patent length. Second, whereas most of the empirical literature in the field focuses on granted patents and investigates their maintenance, the analysis reported here includes all patent applications. This comprehensive approach is dictated by the provisional rights provided by pending applications to their holders and by the legal uncertainty these represent for competitors. And third, the model integrates a wide set of explanatory variables, starting with the filing strategy variables proposed in chapter 5. The main results are threefold: first, they clearly show that patent rights have significantly increased in length over the past decades despite a small apparent decline in the average grant rate, but largely due to the expansion of the examination process. Second, they indicate that most filing strategies induce considerable delays in the examination process, possibly to the benefit of the patentee, but most certainly to the expense of legal uncertainty on the markets. And third, they confirm that more valuable patents (more cited or covering a larger geographical scope) take more time to process, and live longer, whereas more complex applications are associated with longer decision lags, but also with lower grant and renewal rates.<p><p>7. Conclusions: The potential economic consequences and some policy implications of the findings from the dissertation are discussed in chapter 7. The evolution of patenting practices analysed in these works has some direct consequences for the stakeholders of the patent system. For the EPO, they generate a considerable increase in workload, resulting in growing backlogs and processing lags. For innovative firms, this phenomenon translates into an undesired increase in legal uncertainty, for it complicates the assessment of the limits to each party’s rights and hence of the freedom to operate on a market, which is precisely what the so-called ‘patent trolls’ and ‘submariners’ may be looking for. Although empirical evidence is lacking, some fear that this may result in underinvestment in research, development or commercialization activities (e.g. Hall and Harhoff, 2004). In addition, legal uncertainty is synonymous with an increased risk of litigation, which may hamper the development of SMEs and reduce the level of entrepreneurship. Finally, for society, we are left with a contrasted picture, which is hard to interpret. The European patent system wishes to maintain high quality standards to reduce business uncertainty around granted patents, but it is overloaded with the volume of applications filed, resulting in growing backglogs which translate into legal uncertainty surrounding pending applications. The filing strategies that contribute to this situation might reflect a legitimate need for more time and flexibility in filing more valuable patents, but they could also easily turn into real abuses of the system, allowing some patentees to obtain and artificially maintain provisional rights conferred by pending applications on inventions that might not meet the patentability requirements. Distinguishing between these two cases goes beyond the scope of the present dissertation, but should they be found abusive, they should be fought for they consume resources and generate uncertainty. And if legitimate, then they should be understood and the system adapted accordingly (e.g. by adjusting fees to discourage some strategies, raising the inventive step, fine-tuning the statutory term in certain technologies, providing more legal tools for patent examiners to reject unpatentable applications, etc.) so as to better serve the need of inventors for legal protection in a more efficient way, and to adapt the patent system to the challenges it is or will be facing.<br>Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Information and Communication Sciences, Department of Computing, 2008.<br>Bibliography: p. 144-153.<br>Introduction -- Background -- Overview of watermarking -- Natural language watermarking -- Software watermarking -- Semi-blind and reversible database watermarking -- Blind and reversible database watermarking -- Conclusion and future research -- Bibliography.<br>Digital watermarking has generated significant research and commercial interest in the past decade. The primary factors contributing to this surge are widespread use of the Internet with improved bandwidth and speed, regional copyright loopholes in terms of legislation; and seamless distribution of multimedia content due to peer-to-peer file-sharing applications. -- Digital watermarking addresses the issue of establishing ownership over mul-timedia content through embedding a watermark inside the object. Ideally, this watermark should be detectable and/or extractable, survive attacks such as digital reproduction and content-specific manipulations such as re-sizing in the case of images, and be invisible to the end-user so that the quality of the content is not degraded significantly. During detection or extraction, the only requirements should be the secret key and the watermarked multimedia object, and not the original un-marked object or the watermark inserted. Watermarking scheme that facilitate this requirement are categorized as blind. In recent times, reversibility of watermark has also become an important criterion. This is due to the fact that reversible watermarking schemes can provided security against secondary watermarking attacks by using backtracking algorithms to identify the rightful owner. A watermarking scheme is said to be reversible if the original unmarked object can be regenerated from the watermarked copy and the secret key.<br>This research covers three multimedia content types: natural language documents, software, and databases; and discusses the current watermarking scenario, challenges, and our contribution to the field. We have designed and implemented a natural language watermarking scheme that uses the redundancies in natural languages. As a result, it is robust against general attacks against text watermarks. It offers additional strength to the scheme by localizing the attack to the modified section and using error correction codes to detect the watermark. Our first contribution in software watermarking is identification and exploitation of weaknesses in branch-based software watermarking scheme proposed in [71] and the software watermarking algorithm we present is an improvised version of the existing watermarking schemes from [71]. Our scheme survives automated debugging attacks against which the current schemes are vulnerable, and is also secure against other software-specific attacks. We have proposed two database watermarking schemes that are both reversible and therefore resilient against secondary watermarking attacks. The first of these database watermarking schemes is semi-blind and requires the bits modified during the insertion algorithm to detect the watermark. The second scheme is an upgraded version that is blind and therefore does not require anything except a secret key and the watermarked relation. The watermark has a 89% probability of survival even when almost half of the data is manipulated. The watermarked data in this case is extremely useful from the users' perspective, since query results are preserved (i.e., the watermarked data gives the same results for a query as the nmarked data). -- The watermarking models we have proposed provide greater security against sophisticated attacks in different domains while providing sufficient watermark-carrying capacity at the same time. The false-positives are extremely low in all the models, thereby making accidental detection of watermark in a random object almost negligible. Reversibility has been facilitated in the later watermarking algorithms and is a solution to the secondary watermarking attacks. We shall address reversibility as a key issue in our future research, along with robustness, low false-positives and high capacity.<br>Mode of access: World Wide Web.<br>xxiv, 156 p. ill. (some col.)

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) licences channel the exclusionary and individualising force of copyright to establish a qualitatively different, somewhat subversive, system for the exploitation of software. This thesis examines how it is that FOSS licences establish this 'system within a system' under both German and United States law. The inquiry begins with a detailed examination of FOSS licence templates as the instruments which transform code from its default position as the 'res' of proprietary relations to its status as 'open' or 'free'. The thesis then considers whether FOSS licence templates, as the legal basis for this subversive move, are valid and enforceable under domestic law. In addressing this question, the thesis undertakes a critical analysis of the leading case law in each jurisdiction. Going beyond the immediate case law, the thesis considers the broader systemic effects of FOSS licence enforcement. It highlights how building a system within a system foments certain tensions and contradictions within the law, in turn giving rise to unintended consequences and legal uncertainty. By highlighting these tensions, the thesis argues that the questions of FOSS licence enforcement in Germany and the United States may not be as settled as some may think.

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to explore what software evaluation methods are currently available that can assist organizations and companies in procuring a software solution for some particular task or purpose for a specific type of business. The thesis is based on a real-world scenario where a company, Volvo Technology Corporation (VTEC), is in the process of selecting a new intellectual property management system for their patent department. For them to make an informed decision as to which system to choose, an evaluation of market alternatives needs to be done. First, a set of software evaluation methods and techniques are chosen for further evaluation. An organizational study, by means of interviews where questions are based on the ISO 9126-1 Software quality model, is then conducted, eliciting user opinions about the current system and what improvements a future system should have. The candidate methods are then evaluated based on the results from the organizational study and other pertinent factors in order to reach a conclusion as to which method is best suited for this selection problem. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is deemed the best choice.</p>

This thesis deals with the way in which copyright law is changing in the digital environment and the mechanisms which are facilitating this change. It deals with these issues by analysing the mechanisms of this change, specifically Digital Rights Management (DRM)Systems and anti-circumvention legislation, and the impact which this change is having on the rights of copyright users. The purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive to authors to continue creating while simultaneously providing a public good in allowing the public to use those creations in certain ways. Copyright achieves this purpose by granting both the author and user certain rights. The author is given a limited monopoly over their work in exchange for allowing this work to enter the public sphere and ensuring that users of that work can utilise that work in certain limited ways. The success of copyright thus rests on maintaining the balance between the rights of these parties. The rise of digital technology has created a situation in which copyright content can be easily copied by any party with a Personal Computer and disseminated around the globe instantly via the Internet. In response to these dangers, copyright owners are making use of DRM systems to protect content. DRM systems include various measures of control within its scope. Theses systems allow for copyright owners to control both access and use of content by copyright users. DRM Systems are not foolproof measures of protection however. Technologically sophisticated users are able to circumvent these protection measures. Thus, in order to protect DRM Systems from circumvention, anti-circumvention legislation has been proposed through international treaties and adopted in many countries. The combined effect of these protection measures are open to abuse by copyright owners and serve to curtail the limited rights of copyright users. The end result of this is that the balance which copyright law was created to maintain is disrupted and copyright law no longer fulfils its purpose. This thesis undertakes an analysis of these issues with reference to how these issues affect copyright users in developing countries. This is done with particular reference to possible approaches to this issue in South Africa as South Africa is a signatory to these anti-circumvention treaties.

The continuous advances and prevalence of embedded systems, being systems consisting of both hardware and software put together, provides a great challenge for industrial companies. Due to the increasing need of complex products to meet the demands of customers, companies more often need to source software from external suppliers. Software has the characteristic of being a product which is difficult to specify as it has the ability to iteratively update itself according to the changing environment, making it hard to determine precisely what it will look like at the beginning of its development. As a result, traditional waterfall contracts, for which the intention is to set clear specifications early on, are often not suitable for developing systems including software. Therefore, the need for flexible contracts, called agile contracts, among industrial companies is emerging to support new technological applications. The purpose of this thesis was to examine what the main challenges are when implementing agile contracts in industrial companies who are purchasing embedded systems, and how these challenges can be mitigated or rectified. This was done by an empirical study in the form of interviews with various relevant actors. Firstly, employees from an industrial company looking to implement agile contracts within its procurement processes to support its embedded system purchases were interviewed. The respondents expressed their concerns and perceived challenges with introducing agile contracts to their business. Then, to answer the challenges interviews were conducted with people who were knowledgeable within the topic of agile contracts. Also, a benchmark, a literature review and a theoretical framework have been performed to analyse previous findings within this research area. This thesis identified nine main challenges being Risk Management, Payment Model, Time Aspect, Communication, Embedded Systems, IP-Rights, Supplier Management, Mindset &amp; Knowledge and Future. Each of these challenges was answered separately, but it was found that some answers overlapped between different challenges. The most prevalent challenge was regarding communication, as a successful relationship built on sufficient collaboration and trust lays a foundation for all the other challenges to be managed more easily. Another recurrent theme was that all involved parties must understand precisely what an agile contract implies in order to make beneficial decisions to manage all the challenges.<br>De kontinuerliga framstegen för inbyggda system, som består av både hårdvara och mjukvara sammansatt innebär en stor utmaning för industriella företag. På grund av det ökade behovet av mjukvara för att möta kundernas efterfrågan behöver företag köpa in mjukvara från externa leverantörer. Mjukvara är svårt att specificera eftersom det har förmågan att iterativt uppdatera sig själv i enighet med den förändrade miljön. Detta gör det svårt att i ett tidigt skede av ett projekt fastställa exakt hur produkten ska vara utformad. På grund av detta är traditionella kontrakt, som ofta följer vattenfallsmodellen för vilken avsikten är att tidigt sätta tydliga kravspecifikationer, sällan lämpade för att köpa in inbyggda system. Därav uppstår behovet av agila kontrakt bland industriföretag för att stödja nya tekniska tillämpningar. Syftet med denna avhandling var att undersöka vilka de huvudsakliga utmaningarna är gällande att implementera agila kontrakt på ett industriföretag som köper in och utvecklar inbyggda system samt hur dessa utmaningar kan bemötas. Detta gjordes i form av en empirisk studie med relevanta aktörer, främst inom ett industriföretag som avser att implementera agila kontrakt i sin inköpsprocess för att effektivisera inköp av inbyggda system. Först intervjuades medarbetare som idag köper in inbyggda system. Dessa fick uttrycka sina tveksamheter och utmaningar kring att implementera agila kontrakt i sin inköpsprocess. Efter det utfördes mer strukturerade intervjuer med kunniga personer inom agila kontrakt med målet att hitta lösningar till de tidigare identifierade utmaningarna. Dessa intervjuer i kombination med en litteraturstudie, ett teoretiskt ramverk och en benchmark användes för att analysera och besvara de identifierade utmaningarna. Denna avhandling identifierade nio huvudsakliga utmaningar från de explorativa intervjuerna; Riskhantering, Betalningsmodell, Tidsaspekt, Kommunikation, Inbyggda System, IP-Rättigheter, Mentalitet &amp; Kunskap samt Framtid. Dessa utmaningar har alla blivit besvarade separat men det fastställdes tidigt att de finns tydliga överlappningar mellan utmaningarna. Den vanligaste överlappningen var angående kommunikation då en framgångsrik relation byggd på samarbete och förtroende lägger grunden för att alla andra utmaningar lättare ska kunna bemötas och lösas. Ytterligare ett återkommande tema var att alla parter måste förstå exakt vad ett agilt kontrakt innebär och hur det fungerar för att kunna fatta rätt beslut och hantera övriga utmaningar.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007.<br>The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on December 14, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Após 15 anos de sua adoção pelos Membros da Organização Mundial do Comércio, o Acordo sobre os Aspectos da Propriedade Intelectual Relacionados ao Comércio (TRIPS) ainda permanece como um dos pilares das modernas instituições do sistema internacional da propriedade intelectual e merece contínua análise de seus efeitos sobre países em desenvolvimento. Nesse sentido, tendências expansionistas e níveis mais elevados de proteção dos direitos de propriedade intelectual, nas distintas esferas do multilareralismo, bilateralismo e regionalismo, são, no entanto, confrontadas com as necessidades reais dos países em desenvolvimento, que ainda devem explorar as flexibilidades existentes no Direito Internacional da Propriedade Intelectual. Isso parece ser evidente após a fase de transição do Acordo TRIPS. A implementação de obrigações relacionadas à proteção substantiva e procedimentos de aplicação efetiva da proteção (observância) dá lugar para controvérsias resultantes das demandas pelo acesso aos bens do conhecimento - bens da tecnologia e informação na ordem internacional. O presente trabalho oferece contribuição para o estudo do Direito Internacional da Propriedade Intelectual na Era Pós-OMC e propõe uma análise e reavaliação de seus elementos, princípios e objetivos. Enfatiza a tarefa imperativa de redefinição do equilíbrio intrínseco da propriedade intelectual e a manutenção e expansão do domínio público, concebidos como valores de ordem pública internacional. Nesse contexto, o trabalho propõe analisar os objetivos futuros de um regime internacional da propriedade intelectual, em parte consolidados pelos proponentes da Declaração de Doha sobre TRIPS e Saúde Pública e a Agenda da OMPI para o Desenvolvimento. Em sua estrutura, o trabalho divide-se em três partes. A primeira parte (Status Quo: O Presente e o Passado dos Direitos de Propriedade Intelectual na Ordem Internacional) analisa as políticas e objetivos justificam o regime internacional da propriedade intelectual, seus fundamentos no Pós-OMC/TRIPS e convergência das competências relacionadas à propriedade intelectual na ordem internacional. A segunda parte (O Passado Revisitado rumo ao Futuro dos Direitos de Propriedade Intelectual) aborda as implicações das tendências expansionistas e fortalecimento dos padrões de proteção da propriedade intelectual, concentrando-se em dois casos principais: a harmonização substantiva e os sistemas globais de proteção e observância dos direitos de propriedade intelectual. A terceira parte (Futuro dos Direitos de Propriedade Intelectual na Ordem Internacional) propõe a redefinição dos princípios e objetivos centrais do Direito Internacional da Propriedade Intelectual no Pós-OMC (equilíbrio, transparência, cooperação internacional e transferência de tecnologia) e a manutenção e expansão do domínio público, flexibilidades e opções para acesso aos bens da tecnologia e informação.<br>After 15 years from its adoption by the Member States of World Trade Organization, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) still remains as one of the main pillars of the modern institutions of international intellectual property system and deserves a continuous assessment analysis of its overall impacts on developing countries, their innovation systems and developmental concerns. In this sense, expansionist trends and higher levels of protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in multilateral, regional and bilateral levels - are nevertheless confronted with the actual needs of developing countries in exploring existing and pending flexibilities within the international intellectual property legal regime. This appears to be true particularly after the post-transitional phase of TRIPS Agreement, where implementation of the multilateral obligations related to substantive protection and enforcement procedures gave rise to considerable contentious issues emerging from demands for access to global public goods, knowledge goods. This Doctoral Thesis offers a contribution to the current debate on International Intellectual Property Law in Post-WTO Era and proposes an analysis and reappraisal of its elements, principles and objectives. The work aims at focusing the imperative task of redefining the intrinsic balance of intellectual property and maintenance and expansion of the public domain as values of an international ordre public. In this context, we analyze the systemic objectives of a prospective international intellectual property regime, which were in part consolidated by the proponents of Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health of 2001 and WIPO Development Agenda. In the first part (Status Quo: Past and Present of Intellectual Property in International Order) we analyze the main development of the current international intellectual property regime, its foundations in Post WTO/TRIPS, and convergent intellectual property related competences in international legal order. The second part (Present revisited towards the future of intellectual property rights) approaches the implications of expansionist trends and strengthening of standards of IP protection. In this case, our work focuses on two particular cases: the substantive harmonization and global protection systems and enforcement of intellectual property rights. The third part (Future of Intellectual Property Rights in International Legal System) further analyses core objectives and principles of International Intellectual Property Law in Post-WTO (balance, transparency, international cooperation and transfer of technology) and proposals for the maintenance and expansion of public domain, flexibilities and options for the access to the knowledge goods.

The role of open innovation is becoming increasingly important for organizational competitiveness, while digital technologies provide new opportunities for organizational innovativeness. Regardless of domain and industry, digital technologies have reshaped structure, business logic and organizational dynamics. In that spirit, the forestry industry moves from the traditional model to the open paradigm, embracing the significance of purposive external exploration and internal exploitation of knowledge and technologies. Although the importance of digital technologies has been highlighted by academia, their enabling role in the open innovation process is insufficiently explored. Moreover, little research showcases the systematic way to organize for open innovation in the digital world. This process towards openness creates new opportunities as well as challenges. In order to investigate these emerging challenges and opportunities for open innovation in a digital world, we conducted a qualitative exploratory case study in the Cluster of Forest Technology in northern Sweden. Our results illustrate that challenges such as trust, power asymmetries, knowledge flow and coopetitive activities need to be managed. This study contributes to the existing literature by providing a way to address these challenges, seize more opportunities and bridge the gap between open innovation and digital technologies.

This dissertation provide not only a comprehensive overview on concepts and models of innovation, but it also provide critical analysis on the intellectual property system with an emphasize on the patent system and enforcement system in Vietnam. The empirical findings have suggested that legal business types, firm's age are amongst the determinant characteristics that indicate manufacturing innovation. Furthermore, a number of factors including rewarding scheme,average employee education,collaboration, training are the factors that influence manufacturing innovation.<p>Moreover, an in depth study on the patenting cost system of the fast developing ASEAN countries and China explore the impact of FDI and the patenting cost on the growth of resident patent registration ,which is observed following the traditional demand curve. With poor infranstructure and lack of competent IP personnel, the quality of patent granted is in questionaire. Finally, this research explore in depth the enforcement systems in Vietnam, which need further reform.<br>Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Includes bibliographical references.<br>Namibia is well known for its unique climate and ecological profile hence its biodiversity, which comprises wild and cultivated species and varieties. The country’s relative isolation has contributed to the maintenance of a unique genetic resource base. There are many naturally occurring plants and animals that have been used since time immemorial by local people as a source of food security, primary health and for their general livelihood, which could be exploited for commercial purposes. There is a growing international interest in bio trade with, and bio prospecting in, Namibia. This paper examines Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR’s)6within the Namibian context. It further examines whether the protection under the current Namibian intellectual property (IP) framework sufficiently protects all types of indigenous TK against exploitation. The rationale for the examination stems from a draft policy on ‘Access to Genetic Resources and the Protection of Associated Traditional Knowledge’. There is little knowledge about the genetic resources that have left Namibia, those that are still here, and their biological and conservation status. The associated problems, concerns and threats underscore the need for policies and legislation to regulate access to genetic resources, to protect TK and practices, and to facilitate the equitable sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources.

The question that underlies this research is whether and to what extent does South Africa’s moves to amend its Patent Act, as outlined in the country’s new Intellectual Property (IP) Policy take advantage of the flexibilities made available through the Agreement on Trade- Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS)? Patents law and access to medicines are two areas which are not new to South African IP law. Since the late 1990s when the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) was at its peak, there has been a tensed relationship between IP, through patents, and access to medicines. While proponents for pharmaceutical patents have argued that patents are a necessary stimulant for innovation and development of new medicines, those against pharmaceutical patents have vigorously laid blame on the patent system for birthing monopolies which have led to unaffordable prices for many life-saving drugs. This dissertation examines the patent framework of South Africa and juxtaposes it with the TRIPS Agreement to determine if there is a gap with the regards to the flexibilities available under each, and if so, how much of a gap exists between them. Also, the recommendations made in the IP Policy which was released by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in 2018, are evaluated to ascertain how aligned to the TRIPS flexibilities they will be if they are turned into law by the lawmaker. The Indian patent system is also looked at to see how it went about patent reform and what South Africa can learn from it. Finally, conclusions are drawn and recommendations made, regarding model language which reflects the recommendations in the Policy that the lawmaker may refer to in the amendment process. Patent reform is a difficult task, and with lives hanging in the balance, a crucial one. The process in South Africa has lingered for many years without resolution. This dissertation highlights the need for urgency in the process with the hope that these changes catalyse into a more equitable patent system where the IP scale provides a more balanced eco-system in which both pharmaceutical patent owners and the general public who rely on their medicines can thrive. Although, a daunting task, a bold and proactive approach must be taken to ensure that the balance is reached timeously and efficiently.

This thesis examines the system of intellectual property (IP) protection in contemporary China. The IP system has undergone a series of dramatic reforms in recent years, particularly as a result of China's accession to the World Trade Organisation. From December 2001, China is now committed to comply with the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). However, despite implementing TRIPS provisions into domestic legislation, infringements are still prevalent and criticism of the IP system continues. Therefore, this study aims to analyse China's compliance with the TRIPS Agreement in more detail using theories of compliance originating in international law and international relations, in order to understand this gap between implementation and compliance. Specifically, this study applies a comprehensive model of compliance previously applied to international environmental accords. This model incorporates consideration of the international IP environment and the TRIPS Agreement itself, as well as China-specific factors affecting TRIPS compliance. The model was tested using a combination of qualitative techniques, including an initial bilingual questionnaire, detailed follow-up interviews and analysis of a wide range of primary documents such as WTO papers, laws and regulations and case reports. Respondents participating in the study included legal and business professionals, both international and Chinese, with experience of the IP system in China. The qualitative data was coded and analysed using NVivo software and a model of TRIPS compliance in China created. The study concludes that previous studies of compliance with international obligations have been too narrow in scope and that a more inclusive approach to relevant factors is necessary. In terms of policy implications, this thesis will also suggest that external pressure alone will not achieve long-term changes in the IP system and that more cooperative initiatives are necessary in order to increase China's capacity, as well as intention, to fully comply with the TRIPS Agreement.

This thesis describes DesignTag, a system which can be used to identify electronic design intellectual property (IP) within operating integrated circuits (ICs). The ability to accurately identify IP within ICs has several important applications, including IP theft detection, identifying unmarked ICs and detecting counterfeit devices. Current and proposed methods for identifying IP within ICs are either inadequate for many applications, or are expensive, time consuming and difficult to use. In contrast, the DesignTag system is useful for a wide range of applications, is easy to use, and allows inexpensive and fast detection of IP. The DesignTag system consists of a small “tag” circuit which is added to a piece of IP and a tag detection sub-system which is used to detect signals transmitted by on-chip tags. These signals are transmitted using a thermal side channel, a novel approach in which information is communicated by varying the temperature of an IC package. In addition to discussing the DesignTag system as a whole, this thesis focuses on the development of the tag detection sub-system, adapting concepts from CDMA wireless communications to enable the detection of thermally transmitted tag signals.

South Africa is a biologically diverse but technologically less advanced economy. Like many other developing countries in the world, its biodiversity is exposed to danger due to certain human activities. Among these, patents are charged as the easiest routing for misappropriation of indigenous biological resources and traditional knowledge associated therewith. Being member of the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity, South Africa is under obligation to ensure that its patent system supports the Convention's objectives including biodiversity conservation and sustainable use rather than its destruction and decline. The purpose of this dissertation is not only to dilute this misconception about South African patent system but to prove that with an access and benefit sharing mechanism it is an effective tool for biodiversity conservation, capacity-building and industrial development in the country. To make the system more protective of the rights of the indigenous communities, various modifications have also been proposed in the existing stature of the Act.

This thesis analyses the supra-national application of the morality provisions in the ‘European’ patent system by the judicial/quasi-judicial decision-making in the European Union (“EU”) and European Patent Organisation (“EPOrg”). In doing so, it focuses specifically on Article 53 of the European Patent Convention and Article 6 of Directive 98/44/EC on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions, with particular reference to the overlapping institutional matrix within which these legislative provisions are applied. The intended contribution of this research is in relation to how these decision-making entities of the EPOrg and the EU interpret and apply the morality provisions in the ‘European’ patent system as a feature of their operation as institutions. The research investigates specifically: to what extent and in what ways does an analysis of the institutional framework for the application of the morality provisions by the various institutions implicated in the ‘European’ patent system reveal new insights into the current position and suggest defensible approaches to the future development of these provisions. This has particular relevance in the current context, in light of the developing unitary patent scheme examined through an institutional lens in chapter six. Importantly, the contribution of this research will not be in relation to the specific principles or tests which should be used in applying the morality provisions per se in the ‘European’ patent system, nor does it seek to contribute specifically to the normative questions in relation to what morality should mean in this context or whether the morality provisions should exist within the patent system. Such matters have been explored extensively in the literature. Instead, this thesis uses doctrinal methods to build a theoretical framework by drawing specifically on institutional theories within law and sociology, which are used to devise a novel framework for assessing institutional influences on decision-makers. This framework is then applied to the EPOrg and EU with the aim of demonstrating the differing institutional pulls on each body in their application of the morality provisions, which is used as a single exemplar to achieve this kind of institutional analysis. The overall aim of this research is to contribute to an understanding of decision-making in this specific context by reference to understandings of how institutional contexts can have profound effects upon the end outcomes of decision-making. This reveals a hitherto un-exposed perspective not only on what is happening within patent law with respect to the morality provisions, but also novel insights that may help to explain the legal landscape that has emerged, and which can inform its future development.

<p>In this study we investigate how the attitude and behaviour concerning illegal file shar-ing have changed among the young population in Sweden. The study will analyze the impact of the IPRED law that was introduced in April 2008 and new digital media ser-vices that have emerged in the last couple of years. It is also evaluated which of these have had the most impact on the attitude and behaviour of the selected population.</p><p>The main part of our research consists of a quantitative survey handed out to a sample population among high school students (ages 16-20) in Jönköping, Sweden. This pri-mary data is later compared to secondary data from a similar study that was done on the same demographics two years prior to this research in order to measure the change in behaviour and attitude. The previous study was conducted prior to the IPRED law im-plementation by one of the authors. We also used prior research within this subject and related fields to further understand and interpret our data.</p><p>What we have discovered through our research is that there has been a decrease in ille-gal file sharing, especially when considering music, however this decrease is much more an effect of the adopting of new media services then it can be attributed to the IPRED law. Furthermore, the attitudes towards file sharing have remained unchanged and a large number of young adults do not feel that file sharing should be illegal.</p><p>It is also concluded that good legal alternatives to file sharing have a large market po-tential if these services can fulfil consumers demand on availability and price. Addition-ally we have found that good legal alternatives are important if the public is to refrain from returning to their old file sharing habits once the initial scare from new legislation has worn off.</p>

This research examines the effect of a nation's IP environment on the IP management (IPM) strategies of foreign innovative firms. It introduces the conc;ept of a national institutional system of intellectual property protection and enforcement (ISI) to capture the characteristics of a country's IP system. The ISI comprises: (i) formal (de jure) substantive and subordinate laws (including supranational, national and sub-national laws, infrastructure and systems) and (ii) informal (de facto) rules of behaviour of institutional and economic actors. This research reveals that a national ISI can have a significant determinant effect on the IPM strategies of firms at both a macro-level (i.e. expansion decisions and entry-mode choice) and a micro-level (i.e. decisions taken in the host country to manage IPRs). This study identifies and compares the IS Is of two developing countries, namely, India and China, which provide only weak IP protection and enforcement and yet are significant sources of infringing activity. We examine how the ISI of each country impacts on firm strategy, with a focus on three high-technology industries, namely, biosciences, advanced engineering and software-electronics. In-depth interviews were conducted with managers of foreign innovative firms that have operations in India or China, or both. Interview data provide insights into their perceptions and experiences of the ISI of each country and the IPM strategies they deploy to protect and enforce their IPRs. This study reveals strong similarities and differences between the ISIs of both countries, and that this has a varying effect on the IPM strategies of firms depending on the industry context. In particular, we find that the informal rules of behaviour have a greater effect on firm strategy than do formal characteristics of the ISI. We explain why firms from the three focal industries adopt different IPM strategies in response to the ISI of each country, and how these vary in their effectiveness by industry and between the two countries.

The author claims that, from a general perspective, the economic analysis of infonnation and its relation with law presents a strong inefficiency. The author develops a study ofthe economic incentives in general and the manner how prívate property is constituted as the principal but is not the only one of the economic incentives for the production of information and innovation. In strict sense, the author explores the ontology of property, showing that it does not allow the inclusion of immaterial and intangible goods since the modern fundamentals of such institution come form the appropriation and the homesteading rule, categories incompatible with the ontology of information. Into such argumentation, the author studies the economic incentive theories for information and innovation, initiating with the study of the characters of information and the fallacies that always had surrounded such good. The author concludes showing that intellectual property rights are not the product of an evolutionary process, but, on the contrary, they come from privileges conceded by the State, which its justification and fundament is invalid and equivocal due to the incompatibility of the property and the homesteading rule with the ontology of information.<br>El autor argumenta que, desde una perspectiva general, el análisis económico de la información y su relación con el derecho presenta una ineficiencia liminar. Para ello, desarrolla un estudio de los incentivos económicos en general y de la manera como la propiedad privada se constituye en el principal pero no el único de los incentivos económicos a la producción de información e innovación. En sentido estricto el autor hace una ontología de la propiedad, demostrando que ella no permite la inclusión de bienes inmateriales o intangibles en tanto que el fundamento moderno de tal institución proviene de la apropiación y la ocupación, categorías incompatibles con la naturaleza de la información. Dentro de tal argumentación, el autor se fundamenta en el espectro de los incentivos económicos para la producción de información e innovación, iniciando con un estudio de la naturaleza de la información y las falacias que siempre han rodeado a dicho bien. El autor concluye mostrando que los derechos de propiedad intelectual no son el producto de un proceso evolutivo de una institución como la propiedad, sino que, por el contrario, ellos proceden de privilegios concedidos por el Estado, cuya justificación y fundamento es inválido y equivoco debido a la incompatibilidad del ser de la propiedad y la ocupación con la ontología de la información

Novelty is a widespread notion that has not been given commensurate critical attention. This research is an ethnographically-inclined exploration of practices surrounding the accomplishment of novelty in an institution for which novelty is a central notion: the patent system of the United Kingdom. The research is based on interviews with patent examiners at the UK patent office, interviews with patent attorneys at various legal firms, and documentary analysis of legislation and numerous legal judgments. The thesis brings to bear themes from Science and Technology Studies and ethnomethodology to assess the extent to which they can account for the practices surrounding novelty in the UK patent system. As a fundamental legal requirement for the patentability of inventions, novelty is a central part of the practices of patent composition, assessment and contestation. Rather than being a straightforward technical criterion, however, novelty is shown to be a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon emerging from interwoven legal, bureaucratic and individual practices. The local resolution of whether or not a given invention is new, and the cross-institutional coherence of novelty as a practicable notion, raise questions concerning ontology, accountability, scale and inconcludability, and provide an opportunity for empirically grounded engagement with these longstanding analytical concerns.

This thesis develops a theoretical model to explain the creation of international behavioural norms drawing on two literatures: Constructivism in International Relations and the Sociology of Knowledge. This theoretical model draws attention to the interplay between scientific knowledge and normative concerns in the process of norms creation, to the role of non-state actors in norm construction, as well as to the importance of states in normative negotiations. I have also sought to uncover different types of power that both states and non-state actors have employed and the tactics of bargaining and persuasion which prevail and lead to the successful creation of international norms. The proposed theoretical model is applied to three case-studies, which are the creation of the norm outlawing the use of torture, the norm protecting intellectual property rights in the pharmaceutical industry, and the norm for the protection of the atmosphere from the effects of human activities to prevent or slow down global warming. The historical reconstruction of events leading up to the legalisation and operationalisation of these norms has revealed important similarities in the way that these norms were negotiated. There is a resemblance in the manner in which scientific knowledge and normative beliefs interacted. All three case-studies exposed the degree to which non-state actors – NGOs, scientific communities, advocacy organisations, religious groups, businesses, etc. – participated in the creation of international norms, and although this is not a new concept in itself, it is worth reconsidering its intensity and the role of these actors in world politics. My research into the development of these three international norms has also emphasised the need for a better understanding of the points of closure in scientific, normative, and political debates. I argue that the way in which closure is reached is directly relevant to the strength, effectiveness and authority of the norm created.

Integrated Circuit (IC) designs are increasingly moving towards Intellectual Property (IP) reuse for various targeted products and market segments. Therefore, there is a need to share and synergize internal bus architectures to enable the reuse of IP blocks for various ASIC and SoC applications. Due to the different market segments of various ASICs and SoCs, design teams and architects have opted to use customized internal bus architectures to suit the respective targeted features for their market segments. As a result, many ASIC and SoC companies that produce microprocessors for computers, microcontrollers for consumer electronics as well as memory and I/O controller chipsets have opted to use different internal interfaces, designs and IPs for the different products that they sell. A modular and configurable bus architecture that is flexible and capable of supporting IPs from various ASICs and SoCs would serve to solve many of the problems relating to IP reuse for various applications from a front end design perspective. There are several approaches to resolve this, for example, using a standard existing open source bus, a new all-encompassing bus that covers the needs of the majority of designs and a customization of a particular bus level such as the interface layer, where part of the bus features are fixed and the rest of them are determined by individual design groups. This research covers the analysis of existing bus architectures in industry and considers the various options for bus architecture optimization for design modularity, bus performance and IP reuse with existing technology. The architecture definition, design, logic simulation and performance comparisons of the proposed bus architecture on industry standard RTL design and validation tools was then conducted.

A Geographic Information System visually communicates both spatial and temporal analyses and has been available for at least twenty years in New Zealand. Using a Kaupapa Māori Research framework, this research investigates the benefits and barriers for Māori if they were to adopt GIS to assist their development outcomes. Internationally, indigenous peoples who have adopted GIS have reported they have derived significant cultural development benefits, including the preservation and continuity of traditional knowledge and culture. As Māori development continues to expand in an increasing array of corporate, scientific, management and cultural arenas, the level of intensity required to keep abreast of developments has also expanded. GIS has been used by some roopū to assist their contemporary Māori development opportunities; has been suggested as a cost effective method for spatial research for Waitangi Tribunal claims; has supported and facilitated complex textual and oral evidence, and has also been used to assist negotiation and empowerment at both central and local government level. While many successful uses are attributed to GIS projects, there are also precautionary calls made from practitioners regarding the obstacles they have encountered. Overall, whilst traditional knowledge and contemporary technology has been beneficially fused together, in some instances hidden or unforeseen consequences have impeded or imperilled seamless uptake of this new technology. Challenges to the establishment of a GIS range from the theoretical (mapping cultural heritage) to the practical (access to data) to the pragmatic (costs and resources). The multiple issues inherent in mapping cultural heritage, indigenous cartography and, in particular, the current lack of intellectual property rights protection measures, are also potential barriers to successful, long-term integration of GIS into the tribal development matrix. The key impediments to GIS establishment identified by surveyed roopū were lack of information and human resources, and prioritisation over more critical factors affecting tangata whenua. Respondents also indicated they would utilise GIS if the infrastructure was in place and the cost of establishment decreased. Given the large amount of resources to be invested into GIS, and the opportunity to establish safe practices to ensure continuity of the GIS, it is prudent to make informed decisions prior to investment. As an applied piece of Kaupapa Māori research, a tangible outcome in the form of an establishment Guide is presented. Written in a deliberately novice-friendly manner, the Guide traverses fundamental issues surrounding the establishment of a GIS including investment costs and establishment processes.

Geographers have investigated agri-foods, commodity chains, 'alternative' food networks, 'local' production, and multicultural cuisine. However, the relationship between food, place, boundaries, environmental determinism, and authenticity remains under-researched. This thesis seeks to redress this deficiency with a detailed study of the construction of the Protected Food Names (PFN) scheme in the UK. PFNs are a type of Intellectual Property (IP) and form the European component of the international Geographical Indications (GI) system. These place-based foods and drinks originate from defined and bounded areas and are produced in supposedly traditional ways. Their manufacturers consider them unreplicable outside the protected zone. This qualitative investigation of three PFNs – Melton Mowbray Pork Pies, Stilton Cheese, and Grimsby Traditional Smoked Fish – critiques the ways in which ideas of place, boundaries, and authenticity are invoked by producers. The thesis interrogates how manufacturers understand place and its boundedness, employ supposedly 'objective' historical evidence, and apply the ambiguous notion of authenticity to stabilise and sustain local practices. The study also examines the strategies deployed to generate consumer interest in an era where uniqueness is an important marker of value. This work thus introduces a different conceptual angle to accounts of the PFN structure which primarily privilege legal or economistic assessments. It aims instead to deconstruct the geographical concepts on which the PFN edifice is based. The ultimate aim is to draw attention to the vagaries inherent in the increasingly hegemonic GI model. This research connects with geographical debates about the construction of place and boundaries, the social production of authenticity, the role of selective historical 'facts' in the development of narratives about place, and the 'selling' of location and its products. It therefore provides a lens through which the foundations and everyday operation of the GI system can be profitably analysed.

This thesis will show how patents policies can help the commercialization of inventions in Europe. Our study is mainly based on statistical material contained in the European Patent Office’s (EPO) database of published granted patents. Our study covers 407 granted patents in the field of chemistry and handling &amp; processing in a one period year starting on 2007-12-24 and ending on 2008-12-26.Given the scope of data analysis, we found a tendency to limit the patents post (after) grant to a few states in Europe, mainly to Germany (DE), France (FR), Great Britain (GB), Italy (IT), Spain (ES), The Netherlands (NL) and Sweden (SE). This limitation in time and designated states is an indication that the markets in these states are the most important ones in Europe concerning the fields of chemistry and handling &amp; processing for the applicant of the patent (e.g. the proprietor). In more than 70% of the number of granted patents post grant in our empirical study DE, FR and GB are the designated states. But we also found that in several of the granted patents in our thesis, Austria (AT), Belgium (BE), Switzerland (CH) and Finland (FI) are designated post grant. The numbers of designated states, post grant, in the scope of our thesis are higher compared with earlier studies applying the same method. For example Markus Reitzig’s empirical study that was made in 2004 uses 813 granted European patents, where the designation of DE, FR and GB was more significant and only 4-5 states on average were designated. It is an indication that the European market has extended the last 10 years within the fields of our study. The uniqueness of our empirical study comes from the survey of each of the 407 granted patents when it was filed at the European Patent Office (EPO) and after grant and publishing (post grant), i.e. at the beginning of the life cycle of the patent. As far as we know no earlier studies did so. Concerning our sample of applications for a European patent, the rational is the following. When the application is filed at EPO are all possible states designated, but post grant of the patent only a few state remains. Concerning the selection of the field of patenting, our consideration of data singularises chemistry and handling &amp; processing. Clearly in the field of chemistry we found a marked incremental tendency for the transfer of patents rights. The transfer itself may be an indicator of a change either of industrial process toward R&amp;D or a strategy toward patent policies in this specific field. The thesis tries consequently to evaluate if the EU-patent system will ease the commercialization of inventions in chemistry and handling´&amp; processing in Europe. Especially for SMEs the EU-patent should facilitate a quicker and cheaper process. A general opinion assumes that the European patent application is too expensive for small companies. The process of establishing EU-patent was initiated 30 years ago and it will last another 5 years before it is fully possible to filing. Obviously, legal and political matters are not completely solved but that is not the direct concern of this thesis.

What happens when resources get valuable and scarce? How is Intellectual Property dealing with market failures related to sub-patentable innovation or purely traditional knowledge with interesting applications? The protection of traditional knowledge and genetic resources (TKGR) has been one of the major modern challenges in international IP law. The entry into force of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its implementation in national legislation has created more questions than the ones it answered. The objective of this dissertation is to assist in the evaluation of current national and regional implementation initiatives as well in the presentation and evaluation of different forms of entitlements that could be applicable in the case of TKGR. The dissertation has employed a theoretical framework for this evaluation, by combining the Coase Theorem and Rawls' theory of justice. The choice of these two theoretical models is not a random one. In order for the entitlement covering TKGR to be successful, it has to be efficient. It has to offer a stable and efficient marketplace where access to TKGR is possible without unnecessary frictions. However, efficiency could not be the only objective.  An entitlement focusing solely on efficiency would fall short of the needs and special considerations of TKGR trade. It would above all be counter to the objectives and major principles of the CBD, the “fair and equitable sharing of the benefits” and would certainly fail to address the very important North-South perspective.  Fairness is thus a necessary complement to the efficiency of the proposed entitlement. This dissertation proposes a thorough investigation of the special characteristics, of right-holders, subject-matter, market place as well as of the general expectations that an entitlement is supposed to fulfill. In parallel to that, it  looks into the meaning and scope of alternative entitlements in order to be able to propose the best alternative.

On the 6 of October 2009 the European Court of Justice came with a preliminary ruling in the PAGO case concerning the geographical extent for a Community Trade Mark with reputation within the European Community. The judgment has given rise to a lot of questions. The fact that the ECJ, the Advocate General and Lawyers have different opi-nions on the geographical extent and on the outcome of the case creating big discus-sions on the topic of the necessity of Community Trade Marks. This has given rise to the purpose of this thesis which is to investigate the requirement for having a reputation in the Community according to Art 9.1 (c) CTMR, and analyze the legal consequences and possible threats to the Community Trade Mark system and proprietors of trade marks after the judgment of the PAGO case. This investigation has shown that there are four possible consequences for the CTM system after the judgement. Small countries, such as Luxembourg, are now might seen as a substantial part of the Community, PAGO is now protected within the European Community even in those countries where no one has heard about the brand, companies can obtain injunction in a country without proving reputation there and companies can put all their marketing effort into one country and thereby get protection in the whole Community. The outcome of this case is positive for proprietors of CTMs since it makes it easier for them to gain protection against other actors on the market. The biggest threat for the CTM system is the fact that unclear terms and judgements dis-rupt the Countries within the Community and destroys the harmonization, which the TMD, CTMR and the CTM is trying to build up.

The question of the thesis is ‘How to enhance the effectiveness of the Vietnamese judiciary in dealing with intellectual property rights cases toward the compliance with requirements of the TRIPs Agreement?’. The critical themes in this thesis are how a developing country at the low level of development as in the case of Vietnam, with various distinctiveness in term of economy, society, culture, politics, or legality can enhance its judicial effectiveness in dealing with IP cases in order to fulfil its international obligations under TRIPs Agreement. Despite the importance of the issue, there has not been any research on the first integration of Vietnamese judiciary in line with international regulations on IPRs protection and enforcement applicable to all WTO member states. This thesis will also examine impacts of this international compliance for the Vietnamese judiciary in particular, and to this South East Asian country in general. After analysing the critical situation of IPRs infringements in Vietnam, which lie behind an impetus for change, the thesis will review the historical development of IPRs and main provisions of the TRIPs Agreement. Next, the thesis will examine the definition of judicial effectiveness in special reference to minimum standards as provided in the TRIPs Agreement. I will argue that judicial effectiveness in enforcing IPRs can not be improved to comply with the TRIPs Agreement unless judiciary’s capacity in preventing and deterring IP infringements, judicial organisation and knowledge, and other factors involving legal procedures are enhanced. In the light of above analysis, I will analyse the judicial organisation and legal knowledge in dealing with IP cases, and the adequacy of legislation concerning judicial measures for IPRs enforcement. I will also argue that any content of the reform of Vietnamese judiciary to comply with TRIPs Agreement must take into account, inter alia, the distinctiveness of Vietnamese judiciary, and other unique factors of this country in terms of its economy, society, politic and culture.