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In this talk, I propose to cover two areas of intellectual property. These are copyright and patents. I will examine both of these topics in regard to the provision of scientific and technical information and the development of a dynamic and growing electronic information industry. For I believe that any country that plans to have a healthy information industry requires strong and rigorously enforced patent laws, and strong and rigorously enforced copyright laws.

I begin with a dispute over a fox hunt, by which to understand the law of tangible property, then develop that metaphor for the major types of intellectual property. I start with domestic U.S. patent law for the sake of concreteness, and generalize to other jurisdictions and types of intellectual property. In the latter parts of the paper I discuss the international implications of intellectual property, including especially the effects of information spillovers. The last part of the paper describes the hazards in analogizing “trade” in intellectual property rights to trade in goods, and particularly in interpreting international patent data. These hazards motivate the search for a structural model specially adapted to the purpose of valuing international intellectual property rights and rules. The goal is to give economists a simple and integrated framework for analyzing intellectual property across time, jurisdiction and regime type, with an eye towards eventually developing other incentive systems that have the advantages of property (such as decentralized decision-making), but fewer of the disadvantages.

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated economies and public health systems across the globe, increasing the anticipation for the creation of an effective vaccine. With this comes the reinforcement of debates between the right to health and pharmaceutical patent rights. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how the Philippines could attempt to balance the right to health with pharmaceutical patent rights in the introduction of a potential COVID-19 vaccine into the country.

This will be accomplished through an examination of the flexibilities allowed by international agreements and domestic patent laws.

With the economic and health challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philippine Government will have a strong justification to pursue parallel importation and compulsory licencing under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. This is exacerbated by the bold leadership of President Duterte, whose administration has so far shown a propensity to decide in favor of the right to health at the expense of other rights in dealing with the pandemic.

While this paper focuses on the Philippines, it has a potential application in the least developed and developing countries which aim to gain access to a prospective COVID-19 vaccine. Moreover, while this study discusses the harmonization of laws on the right to health and patent laws as a solution to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lack of access to vaccines, it also calls for solutions that go beyond the application of the law.

Intellectual property rights and competition policy are intimately related. In this chapter I survey the economic literature analyzing the interaction between intellectual property law and competition law and how the boundary between these two policies is drawn in practice. Recognizing that intellectual property rights and competition law can interact in many different ways, the presentation focuses on several key issues. The economic literature on the interaction between competition law and intellectual property rights shows that these regulatory systems are consistent in terms of basic principles. Significant tensions exist, however, and it is difficult to balance IPR and competition law in practice. The significant differences in approach between the United States and the European Union simply reflect the underlying reality that efforts to achieve a sensible balance do not result in policy harmonization.

The purpose of this monograph is to examine the main elements of the Copyright Designs & Patents Act 1988 which received the Royal Assent on the 15th November 1988. The Act provided for a major overhaul of the law on copyright and on registered designs, as well as certain adjustments to patent and trademark law and two major new regimes on performers' rights and design rights. While this is a major domestic reform the law is unlikely to remain unaltered for long because of the move towards a single market within the E.E.C. by 1992. This will lead to the introduction of harmonised regimes on the various elements of intellectual property law such as copyright and industrial design which will no doubt require some readjustment to U.K. domestic law. Recently the E.E.C. Commission published a Green Paper on “Copyright and the Challenge of Technology” which suggests solutions to some questions such as the vexed problem of illegal home taping which are different to those adopted by the U.K. in the new Act. [On 21/12/88 a draft directive on Copyright & Computer Software which proposes a harmonised regime for the protection of computer programs and related matters was published]. It also has to be borne in mind that while Article 222 of the Treaty of Rome states that the treaty does not affect the existence of national intellectual property right regimes the “exercise” of these national rights may be found to infringe the provisions of the Treaty on free movement of goods (Arts. 30–36) or on competition law (Arts. 85–86).

Four major changes in patent law—the British Patents Act, European Patent Convention, Community Patent Convention and the Patent Co‐operation Treaty are described. Comments are made on their likely effect on information scientists and commercial information services and some predictions are made on likely usage of the European Patent Convention by British firms.

While copyright law remains a significant area of law providing easily obtained and low cost protection to the copyright owners of e‐commerce‐related computer programs, it is not without its weaknesses. Patent law has in recent times emerged to provide the necessary reinforcements. The emergence of the law of patent, especially in the area of programs that essentially protect business models, is not without its critics. The purpose of this paper is to consider the protection afforded to the owner of an inventive e‐commerce computer program by the laws of copyright and patent. This paper will canvass the strengths and weaknesses of both systems.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc. is a challenge to conventional antitrust analysis. Conventional civil antitrust cases are decided by a preponderance of the evidence. This means that conduct challenged under the rule of reason is only condemned if the conduct resulted in more competitive harm in the actual world than a world without the alleged violation. Under conventional analysis, the intent of the parties also plays only a supporting role in determining whether the conduct was anticompetitive. A holder of a valid patent has a right to exclude others practicing the patented technology. And, the patent holder is not assumed to have market power because it expended resources in maintaining exclusionary rights. Actavis creates doubts about these propositions in circumstances beyond the “reverse” payment settlement of a patent suit that may have delayed an alleged infringer market entry. This chapter explores whether applying Actavis logic to antitrust litigation can result in condemnation of practices where there is little chance of an anticompetitive effect, where the patent holder likely has a valid and infringed patent, where there is little reason to believe that the patent holder has market power, and where only one party, or no parties, to an agreement have an anticompetitive intent. This chapter also investigates whether Actavis creates new problems with standing analysis, damages calculations, and the balancing of efficiencies against anticompetitive effects. Nevertheless, the lower courts have begun to extend the logic of Actavis. This is apparent in the condemnation of no-Authorized-generic settlements.

Until recently, financial intermediaries have behaved as though immune from the bite of intellectual property law. However, recent decisions of the federal courts and acquiescence by Congress have created a new legal landscape. This article explores the basic principles and implications of patent law for risk finance, specifically in terms of emerging opportunities and incentives related to structured risk management solutions. In so doing, the discussion introduces the trade‐off between past reliance on trade secret law versus the evolving trend toward financial patents. The author addresses its influence within the convergence markets, and argues that patents may play a significant role in future financial and insurance innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the technology, business and intellectual property issues surrounding the production of spare parts through additive manufacturing (AM) from a digital source. It aims to identify challenges to the growth of the AM spares market and propose suitable solutions.

The paper begins with a systematic literature review and theoretical analysis. This is followed by case study research through semi-structured interviews, forming the basis of a triangulated, cross-case analysis of empirical data.

The paper identifies several obstacles to the development of the AM-produced digital spares market. The manufacturing industry will soon be forced to re-think AM as a real manufacturing alternative. Short-term, AM technology has implications for the production of components for legacy systems for which tooling facilities no longer exist. Long-term, AM will be used to produce a wide range of components especially when product and/or service functionality can be increased. To enable companies to navigate current uncertainties in the patent framework (especially the “repair vs make” doctrine), new intellectual property rights strategies could be developed around patenting both complex devices and their individual components, and seeking patent protection for CAD files. Further harmonization of the EU legal framework, the interpretation of claims and the scope of protection offered in the context of spare parts, will also be important.

This study pinpoints key issues that need to be addressed within the European AM business environment and the patent system and proposes recommendations for business and legal frameworks to promote the growth of a stable European digital spare parts market.