Wednesday, August 29, 2012

The Latest Issues at the Crossroads of Antitrust and IPR

B. Foer, here

An Overview of the "Patent Trolls" Debate

US Congressional Research Service, here

Bundesregierung verabschiedet Gesetzentwurf zu neuem Leistungsschutzrecht

Heise.de, hier

Motorola Agrees to License Standard Essential Patents to Apple in Germany

Allthingsd.com, here

The International Dimension of Proprietary Technical Standards: Through the Lens of Trade, Competition Law and Developing Countries

Y. Pai, here

Apple vs. Samsung: Infringing by design

Latimes.com, here

ICANN: Antitrust Allegations Before US District Court


Manwin Licensing International S.A.R.L., et al. v. ICM Registry, LLC, et al.,  Case CV 11-9514 PSG (JCGx), Order GRANTING in Part and DENYING in Part the
Motions to Dismiss, here.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Apple-Samsung Amended Jury Verdict

US District Court, Northern District of California, Case No.: 11-CV-01846-LHK, here

Friday, August 24, 2012

La Hadopi réfléchit à une "suite de la réponse graduée" sans amendes

Numerama.com, ici

WIPO: 2012 IP Facts and Figures: Computer Technologies' Patent Dominance

Here.
However, "most national  and regional IP office statistics refer to 2010".
At p.21: "(I)n 2010, computer technology (117,576) and electrical machinery (104,543) accounted for the largest numbers of applications, with a combined share of 15% of all published application" (emphasis mine).



Seoul court rules Samsung didn't violate Apple design

Reuters.com, here.

Travel Business: The ineluctable Middlemen

The Economist, here

Anti-competitive Agreements and Unilateral Conduct/Abuse of Dominance: Some Current Issues

R. Whish, Presentations here and here

The Interface Between Competition Law and Sectoral Regulation

N. Ee-Kia, Presentation here

Striking a balance between competition compliance and business costs – an Australian perspective

J. Walker, Presentation here

Fair use for Australia?

Barrysookman.com, here

Thursday, August 23, 2012

The Internet a Decade Later

Infographic, here

Why are UK producers the superheroes of the global format trade?

Bbcworldwide.com, here

Ökonomen sollen ihre Geldgeber offenlegen - Die Volkswirte-Vereinigung beschließt einen Ethikkodex

Faz-community.faz.net, hier.

Lemley on what drives competition in the IT space

“Apple presented the intellectual property view of innovation — we created it, we own it, you can’t use it. Samsung presented the competition view of innovation — everyone should make great products and let consumers choose. IP law generally sides with Apple at this broad level, though there is a pretty good argument that it is competition, not monopoly, that drives great innovation in the IT space”, from Competing Views of Competition in Apple-Samsung Trial, Allthingsd.com, here.

For Non-Twitter Users: Video of the TPI Aspen Panel on Antitrust and Internet Competition

Here, panelists here.

Schritt nach vorne für die offene Verwaltung in Deutschland?

Ifross.org, hier

The Supreme Court of Canada Speaks: How To Assess Fair Dealing for Education

M. Geist, here

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

So Close, Yet So Far Apart: The EU and U.S. Visions of a New Privacy Framework

C. Wolf, W. Maxwell, here

Embracing Magic

K. Walker, here. #TPIAspen

Quotation from  Magical Patent Policy: "one third of all patent lawsuits now involve software
patents, way out of whack to the relative size of the industry. Software and Internet patents are litigated
eight times more often than other patents. Troll lawsuits cost productive U.S. companies $29 billion in
direct payouts last year, $80 billion a year when you take all costs into account, and more than $500
billion in the years since the Federal Circuit first authorized software patents. Worst of all, wasteful
patent litigation is costing customers real money and real choices in the devices they love.
This happens because software patents too often allow ownership of broad, sometimes trivial ideas. It
should not be this way. It is the execution as much as the idea that often matters in the
marketplace. Facebook wasn’t the first social network -- but it thrived because it executed well. Google
wasn’t first in search, but the way we executed has made our results better."

Quotation from Magical Competition Policy: "we should pay close attention to switching costs and lock-in. Since everyone is competing against
everyone else, consumers, advertisers, and publishers typically have lots of options. But those options
are less useful if walled gardens or proprietary formats make it difficult for users to switch. That’s why
Google created our Data Liberation Front, letting users easily export their data. The inability to move
your data -- like contacts, emails, and web history -- from one service to another can sometimes make
switching more difficult in ways that are bad for consumers and bad for competition."

Panel - Internet Competition: Implications for Antitrust

ASPEN 2012 AGENDA, Technology Policy Institute 

August 21, 2012
Susan Athey, Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Harvard University and Visiting Researcher, Microsoft Research New England
Tim Bresnahan, Landau Professor in Technology and the Economy, Stanford University
Carlos Kirjner, Vice President and Senior Analyst, Internet, Alliance Bernstein
William Kovacic, Global Competition Professor of Law and Policy; Professor of Law; Director, Competition Law Center, George Washington University
Edith Ramirez, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
Hal Varian, Chief Economist, Google
Thomas Lenard, President and Senior Fellow, Technology Policy Institute (moderator)
Full Agenda here.

  , Video here.


- EU setting standards for competition policy globally 
- Platform competition and multihoming
- Complements/substitutes
- counterfactuals and harm to competition by innovation
- leadership in the vertical stack
- lesson from MS: from complement to possible substitute
- dangerous competition threats ex-post and ex-ante (Google/Netscape)
- counterfactual analysis when high quality products are given away for free (multi-sided markets)
- screen control and design
- fines' irrelevance
- changing nature of switching costs  (e.g. privacy issues suddenly relevant to Internet users and Google users in particular)
- the importance of behavioural economics in order to understand consumers' actions

Canada modernizes its Copyright Act (beyond the Canadian Copyright Modernization Act)

T. Margoni, here

Gesetzliche Verankerung der Netzneutralität in Österreich?

Blog.lehofer.at, hier

‘European Square’ iZettle Now Works With Android; Visa Europe Dispute Drags On

Techcrunch.com, here

Android Litigation Update

Techrights.org, here

2012 EU Survey on R&D Investment Business Trends

Here.

From the Report, p. 12:
"For some sectors, the expected R&D investment changes of the respondents are higher than the growth rates observed in the past (both for the responding companies and the whole sector):  software & computer services (11% p.a. over the next three years), general industrials (6.8%), automobiles & parts (6.0%),
chemicals (5.5%), oil & gas producers (4.6%), aerospace & defence (4.1%), construction & materials (3.8%), technology hardware & equipment (3.5%), and fixed line telecommunications (2.6%).For a few other sectors,
the expected changes are lower than the past growth rates (both for the responding companies and the whole sector): electricity (4.6% p.a. over the next three years) and pharmaceuticals & biotechnology (3.2%)." (emphasis added).

Can this really be true? Patents for TV programme formats ...

Tht IPKat, here

Bundeskartellamt verhängt Bußgeld gegen TTS Tooltechnic wegen vertikaler Preisbindung

Pressemitteilung, hier

Judge Asks Google to Supplement Its List of Any Paid Folks

Groklaw, here

The Impact of Free Music Downloads on the Purchase of Music CDs in Canada

G. Barker, T. Maloney, here

Legal Challenge To ICM Registry’s and ICANN’s .XXX gTLD Continues – What Are The Implications For Other gTLD Applicants?

Jdsupra.com, here

Monday, August 20, 2012

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Should antitrust law enjoin injunctions on standard essential patents?

M. Dolmans, Presentation here

Lemley on Patent Wars in the Smart Phone Industry

People In the Know (China), Audio here

Anti-Competitive Stumbling Stones on the Way to a Cleaner World: Protecting Competition in Innovation without a Market

J. Drexl, here

AKTUELLE FRAGEN DER GEODATEN-NUTZUNG AUF MOBILEN GERÄTEN


INSTITUT FÜR TECHNIKFOLGEN-ABSCHÄTZUNG  DER ÖSTERREICHISCHEN AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN, hier.

Software Becomes that Much Harder to Patent in the United States

Iposgoode.ca, here

A Very Short Primer on Design Patents and Trade Dress

M. Risch, here

Cloud Legal Guidelines

Optimis ("the cloud's silver lining"), Part I here, Part II here

Mapping Cloud Interoperability in the Globalized Economy: Theory and Observations from Practice

U. Gasser and J. Palfrey, here

Friday, August 10, 2012

La licence globale négociée jusqu'à fin 2013 en Suisse

Numerama, ici.

Review Essay: New Perspectives on International Antitrust

M. Gal, here

University of Chicago Press Partners with OUP on E-book Platform

Publishersweekly.com, here

Online tracking: questioning the power of informed consent

N. van Eijk, N. Helberger, L. Kool, A. van der Plas and B. van der Sloot, here

Google Faces Rising FTC Ire

Nationaljournal.com, here

Online Piracy: Challenging the 'three strikes' approach

Nakedsecurity.sophos.com, here

Is consumer welfare the (only) way forward? A re-appreciation of competition law objectives ante portas in both US and EU

A. Skourtis, kluwercompetitionlawblog.com, here

Sharing site of legally purchased ebooks shuts down

Eff.org, here

Urheberrechtsrevision in der Schweiz: Arbeitsgruppe eingesetzt

Eidgenössisches Justiz- und Polizeidepartement, hier

GRUPPO FS HA ABUSATO DELLA PROPRIA POSIZIONE DOMINANTE PER OSTACOLARE L’INGRESSO DELLA SOCIETA’ ARENAWAYS NEL TRASPORTO FERROVIARIO PASSEGGERI

Provvedimento A436, qui. Comunicato stampa, qui

Solving the Patent Settlement Puzzle

E. Elhauge, here

Datenschutz: Googles gnädige Kontrolleure

Spiegel.de, hier

Thursday, August 02, 2012

Public Statement on the U.S. Proposal for a Limitations and Exceptions Clause in the Trans-Pacific Partnership

P. Jaszi, M. Carroll and S. Flynn, here

UK copyright and orphan works: the facts

The BIS Blog, here

Eléments pour la réforme du droit d'auteur et des politiques culturelles liées

Laquadrature.net, ici

Grading the Professor: Evaluating Bill Kovacic’s Contributions to Antitrust Engineering

D. Sokol, C. Wilson, J. Nord, here

Google Book Search Case Threatens Librarians' Access to Information

Eff.org, here

The Orphans, the Market, and the Copyright Dogma: A Modest Solution to a Grand Problem

A. Katz, here

Does Behavioral Economics Have a Role in Antitrust Analysis?


Book Review: Lessons from Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, H. Singer and A. Card, here.

From the Prairie to the Ocean: More Developments in State RPM Law

M. Lindsay, here

Open Government Data Deutschland


J. Klessmann, P. Denker, I. Schieferdecker, S. Schulz, et al., here.

UK SCL Position on E-Book Lending in Libraries

The Society of Chief Librarians, here