There has been little or no study on trademark laws in Asia on a cross-jurisdictional level. This book aims at filling the existing gap and provides a comprehensive overview of trademark laws of eight major Asian jurisdictions and their most-updated trademark case law. The book analyses six of the principal issues that best reflect Asian features in trademark law and trademark development. The cases in the book are principally the most authoritative decisions, usually the first to deal with certain new emerging issues, or the first to apply particular statutory provisions in the respective jurisdiction. Also included are a small number of direction-changing, outlying or even controversial decisions. Each case report is divided into six sections: summary, legal context, facts, reasoning of the court, legal analysis, and commercial or industrial significance. Readers will find this book useful in both its overview of the legal context and how those cases are to be interpreted legally and commercially.

In this second volume of the Applied Research Center for Intellectual Assets and the Law in Asia (ARCIALA) series, thirty-seven eminent scholars and practitioners from Asia and the United States have come together to comprehensively assess leading copyright cases from eight major Asian jurisdictions (People’s Republic of China (PRC), India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan). This book contains thirty-six case reports that focus on six topics that reflect the current trends in Asian copyright law—namely, digital copyright, collective copyright (including the management of copyright and the interface between collecting societies and competition law), criminal copyright (with a discussion of criminal punishment for copyright infringement), limits to copyright (such as fair use and exhaustion), the relationship between copyright laws and other forms of protection, and choice of jurisdiction and applicable law in copyright litigation. Each case report deconstructs the legal background, facts, and rationale of the decision in a particular landmark case, and then discusses the commercial or industrial significance and application. Notably, this includes an analysis of The Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements and its adoption in Singapore, which is, to date, the only Asian country to have fully ratified it. Taken together, this volume presents a useful guide for copyright practitioners, professionals, lawyers, and judges alike in addition to acting as a primer for students and businessmen planning to enter Asia’s exciting world of copyright. It also serves as a handbook for policy makers, both within Asia and further afield.

The first of its kind, this book presents a comprehensive collection of leading patent cases from nine major Asian jurisdictions which are analyzed by eminent scholars and legal practitioners from Asia, Germany, and the United States. It contains thirty case reports covering six topics which best reflect the current trends in Asia in patent law, namely specialized IP court (or division), compulsory licensing, the intersection between patent law and competition law, injunction, damages, and choice of jurisdiction and law in cross-border patent litigation. Each case report explores a landmark case by deconstructing the legal background and the legal reasoning of the decisions, and then discussing the commercial and/or industrial ramifications. The present volume is a useful guide for practitioners, lawyers, and judges alike, a primer for students and businessmen entering the IP world, and a reminder for policymakers, both within Asia and further afield.

This book systematically studies the structural characteristics of IP laws and regimes of major Asian economies, including (but not always) China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. It explores and crystallizes some worthy Asian models which could further help the development of international IP laws. This book begins with an overview of Asian modern history and IP laws. It discusses the three basic IP laws in Asia which are patent law, trademark law and copyright law. It looks at the pre-established damages for copyright infringement and trademark counterfeiting. The book also deals with problems with trade secret and its over-protection. It compares IP laws and four industries in India and China, and examines what role have IP laws played in the development in those industries and how India and China can learn from each other. Finally, it examines one medium and one small-sized Asian economy on its respective struggle (Taiwan’s efforts to build a coherent IP exhaustion regime) and a success story (how Singapore has utilized IP to secure its position in global value chains). This book is a useful reference for law students, scholars, practitioners, IP professionals who are interested in knowing Asia, Asian IP laws and industries, their struggles and finding ways to better global IP laws. The case studies could provide helpful lessons for other Asian economies and beyond.

Trademark scholarship has focused largely on the protection of trademark rights against consumer confusion and the dilution of trademarks. Studies of limitations on trademark rights, meanwhile, have remained relatively peripheral, especially in jurisdictions outside of the United States. However, this reality is incongruous with the importance of the limitations, such as descriptive and nominative uses, in promoting freedom of commerce, market competition, free speech, and cultural dynamics. Against this backdrop, Charting Limitations on Trademark Rights is the first comprehensive academic volume detailing limitations in trademark rights from both theoretical and comparative perspectives. The book presents new theoretical perspectives to justify trademark rights limitations, re-examines the nature of these limitations, delineates the scope of the limitations, and offers comparative studies of the limitations. With contributions from leading trademark scholars in the EU, US, and Asia, this is a must read for scholars, students, practitioners, and policymakers with an interest in the theories, policies, and doctrines of trademark law.

The first part of this open access book sets out to re-examine some basic principles of trade negotiation, such as choosing the right representatives to negotiate and enhancing transparency as a cure to the public's distrust against trade talks. Moreover, it analyses how the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) might impact on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership's (RCEP) IP chapter and examines the possible norm setters of Asian IP. It then focuses on the People's Republic of China's (PRC) trade and IP strategy against the backdrop of the power games between the PRC, India and the US. The second part of the book reflects on issues related to investor–state dispute settlement and its relationship with IP, such as how to re-calibrate the balance in international investment arbitration, and whether compulsory license of IP constitutes expropriation in India, the PRC and select ASEAN countries. The third part of the book questions and strives to improve some of the proposed IP provisions of CPTPP and RCEP and to redefine some aspects of international IP norms, such as: pre-grant patent opposition and experimental use exception; patent term extension; patent linkage and data exclusivity for the pharmaceutical sector; plant variety protection; pre-established damages for copyright infringement; and the restructuring of copyright limitations in the public interest. The open access edition of this book is available under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Applied Research Centre for Intellectual Assets and the Law in Asia, School of Law, Singapore Management University.

Two of the objectives of the Chinese Copyright Law are to protect the copyright of authors to their literary and artistic works and encourage the creation and dissemination of works. In practice, however, in spite of the existence of the Music Copyright Society of China ('MCSC') that was established to assist with exercising copyright, music creators in China remain in need of help to protect and manage their fragmented copyright. The MCSC was the first collective management organisation ('CMO') in mainland China and is the only CMO in the field of musical works. While there is a large music industry and copyright business in China, the MCSC only had 11,356 members at the end of 2021. The third amendment of the Chinese Copyright Law was initiated in 2011 and came into effect in June 2021 after a long debate for almost ten years. The discussion of the third amendment has highlighted the controversial topic of collective management of copyright. This book explores the adequacy of the MCSC as an intermediary representing rights for music creators. The main argument developed in this study is that the work of the MCSC for individual composers and lyricists is hampered by shortcomings in the regulatory regime as well as by a lack of members’ rights to participate in the management of their own rights and by the ineffective international cooperation between the MCSC and other musical CMOs overseas. The analysis is undertaken through a case study approach, comparing the collective management systems of music copyright in China, the United States and Australia and addressing the question of how musical CMOs operate in these countries. Specifically, three perspectives are examined: the regulatory systems designed to limit the misuse of those CMOs’ monopoly, members’ rights in the organisations, and international cooperation between these CMOs. Overall, the main findings of this book suggest that the MCSC in China could work more effectively to protect music creators’ interests. In contrast, although the operational frameworks of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers ('ASCAP') and the Broadcasting Broadcast Music, Inc. ('BMI') in the United States and the Australasian Performing Right Association ('APRA') in Australia are not perfect models, the systems in these two countries may at least provide reference points for potential improvement of the regime of the MCSC. The research recommends three courses of action: strengthening the regulatory design overseeing the MCSC’s monopoly, clarifying the relationship between the MCSC and its members while providing the members with the right to manage their own copyright, and improving the international cooperation between the MCSC and CMOs in other countries.

This book is a very useful reference guide on how de jure and de facto standards are being developed and how these standards compete against each other. The book also looks at how FRAND commitments are being determined across countries, how these disputes have played out, especially in Asia, and how they can be better dealt with in future globally. The book gives a broad overview of the business model of dominant SEP patentees and analyzes some standards for FRAND licensing of SEPs which are converging in major Asian jurisdictions. It highlights the need for ex ante regulation in the FRAND licensing of SEPs and suggests how we can reconcile conflicts which may arise from different legal standards. This book provides detailed and comprehensive analysis of recent SEP cases with an emphasis on Asia and will interest anyone who wishes to have more insight into the legal, policy, industrial and economic implications of such issues.

This book is the first to provide a detailed and critical account of the emergence, development, and implementation of plant variety protection laws in Asian countries. Each chapter undertakes a critical socio-legal analysis of one or more legal frameworks to understand, evaluate, and explore the concerns of diverse national stakeholders, the histories and dynamics of law-making, and the ways in which plant variety protection and seed certification laws interact with local agricultural systems. The book also assesses how Asian countries can capitalise on the ‘unused policy space’ in international agreements such as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, as well as international obligations beyond these, such as those contained in the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Plant Treaty. It also highlights the many ways in which Asian experiences can offer new insights into the relationship between intellectual property and plants, and how relevant laws might be re-imagined in other regions, including Africa, Europe, and the Americas. By adding an important new perspective to the ongoing debate on intellectual property and plants, this book will appeal to academics, practitioners, and policy-makers engaged in work surrounding intellectual property laws, agricultural biodiversity, and plant breeding.

Examining the harmonisation of Intellectual Property policy, law and administration in Africa, this book evaluates the effectiveness of efforts to establish continental Intellectual Property institutions and frameworks. It also considers sub-regional initiatives led by the regional economic communities and the regional Intellectual Property organisations, focusing on relevant protocols and agreements that address Intellectual Property as well as the implementing institutions. The book assesses the progress of such initiatives with particular reference to the current socio-economic status of African states. It argues that that harmonisation initiatives need to be crafted in a way that is supportive of the developmental goals of African states and advocates for due consideration of individual states’ unique conditions and aspirations. This book will be of great relevance to scholars and policy makers with an interest in Intellectual Property law and its harmonisation in Africa.