Invisble Gold of Asia

Llewelyn David

Sujets

• Droit et juridique
• Private
• Intellectual property
• Private Media Group

Informations

• Publié par: Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) PTE LTD
• Date de parution: 01 août 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789814312714
• Langue: English

Extrait

INVISIBLE GOLD IN ASIA

2010 David Llewelyn and Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited
Project editor: Lee Mei Lin Design by Benson Tan / Cover by OpalWorks Co Ltd
Published by Marshall Cavendish Business An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Pte Ltd 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196
All rights reserved
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Llewelyn, David.
Invisible gold in Asia : creating wealth through intellectual property / David Llewelyn. - Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Business, c2010. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. eISBN-13 : 978-981-431-271-4
1. Intellectual property - Asia. 2. Industrial property - Asia. I. Title.
KNC370 346.5048 - dc22 OCN646764002
Printed in Singapore by Fabulous Printers Pte Ltd
Don t make the mistake of thinking something is valuable merely because you can measure it. It is far better to work out what you value and then see if you can measure it.
Acknowledgements
I have been very fortunate to benefit both from being taught by some of the best brains in the intellectual property (IP) law field around the world and from working with outstanding individuals in a variety of businesses and institutions that recognise the importance of IP rights.
In the first category are Professor Gerald Dworkin (who first taught me IP law at Southampton University, was then a colleague at Queen Mary College London and subsequently my predecessor both as Professor at King s College London and as Director of the IP Academy Singapore); Professor Bill Cornish (who recruited me more than 30 years ago as research fellow to the Max Planck Institute for IP Law in Munich, then asked me to teach IP law with him on the University of London Master of Laws programme at LSE and much later invited me to join him as co-author of his groundbreaking textbook on the subject); Professor Dieter Stauder at the Max Planck Institute (who taught me a lot both about IP laws other than those of England and about life); Robert Swift of Linklaters (who taught me to use one word where previously I had used five); Lord Justice Jacob (who got me my job at Linklaters and has been an inspiration and irritation ever since); Professor Jim Lahore (with whom I taught for many years at Queen Mary College London and who instilled in me a sense of the absurd side of IP); and the late Professor Sir Hugh Laddie (who, particularly in the last three years of his life when we lectured and laughed together a lot, reminded me of the importance of combining an enquiring mind with a respect for others views).
In the second are John Runeckles (the best commercial IP lawyer and analyst of a horse race I have known); Hugh Brett (one of the most knowledgeable and open-minded of IP lawyers); Dimitrios Drivas and Bob Raskopf (who, along with David Eisenberg in London, taught me that US lawyers can have a sense of humour but can t drink); Professor John Phillips and Dr Tanya Aplin of King s College London; Professor Spyros Maniatis, Director of the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary College London; Professor Hugh Hansen, father of the always excellent Annual Fordham International IP conference in New York; Jeremy Hemans and Sharon Snodgrass of the IP investment and strategy company IPR-X; Ho Cheng Huat and Rose Ramli of the IP Academy Singapore; Chan Lai Fung, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Law in Singapore; and Professors Johannes Chan and Lim Chin Leng of the Hong Kong University Faculty of Law.
In a category of her own is my former Deputy Director at the IP Academy Singapore and now observer of the Hong Kong scene, Lyn Ng, who is not only immensely talented in any area she deigns to touch but knows more about restaurants around the world than anyone else.
I would also like to thank for her help, and support when I got fed up, my research assistant for the past nine months, Beverley Koranteng-Aitkins: she s learnt a lot and so have I.
To Low Chee Wah I owe the introduction to my publisher Marshall Cavendish and Chris Newson, who immediately got it about the importance of IP and the need to make it more accessible. In turn, the accessibility of this book, such as it is, has been improved greatly through the efforts of his colleague Lee Mei Lin and my editor, Emilyn Tan.
However, despite the help of all these people and many more, there will be mistakes in what follows and those mistakes are my fault alone. Corrections and comments will be gratefully received at [e-mail] .
Last but first in importance, I must thank the three Cs: my wife Carolyn, daughter Cerys and secretary computer says no Carol, without whom this would not have seen the light of day; and my parents, for leaving me to do my own thing.
Singapore
July 2010
Contents
Introduction
PART ONE: What Are Intellectual Property Rights?
01 Invisible Gold: what it is (and what it is not)
02 Ten dangerous misconceptions
03 A patchwork quilt of Invisible Gold
04 It all depends on your perspective
05 What s the fuss about?
06 Why now in Asia?
PART TWO: The Asian IP Landscape
07 It takes all sorts
08 Japan
09 The Little Dragons (or Asian Tigers)
10 China
11 India
12 Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand
13 Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Vietnam
14 Bangladesh, Laos and Cambodia
15 Buying and selling IPRs
16 You can t do it all yourself: licensing of IPRs
17 The dark side: counterfeiting and piracy
18 What next in Asia?
Glossary
Appendix 1: Asia s largest companies with IP exposure
Appendix 2: Asian brands in the Brand Finance Global 500 List
Appendix 3: Timeline of significant events in Asia s Invisible Gold story
Sources
Index
About The Author
Introduction
Intellectual Property Rights, or IPRs, is the much-used and abused term for Invisible Gold . Patents, copyrights and brands are the best known but there are many other varieties. From music to telecoms, from seeds to trees, IPRs protect the services and products demanded by the globalised world and are the must-have currency of the Knowledge Economy.
Everywhere, IPRs are becoming more important-and not just because of the scourge of piracy and counterfeiting that makes the headlines. Although you wouldn t guess it from most media coverage in Asia, there is the positive side of IPRs too: the encouragement and protection of creativity and innovation through which businesses and economies grow and thrive.
It is time for that positive aspect of IPRs to come to the fore in Asia. It is only in this way that businesses and economies can move away from the destructive drive for cheaper and cheaper prices and, instead, move up the added-value curve. As Chen Hong, General Manager of Chinese TV maker SVA Group, predicted in 2004 before the company plunged into losses: We must invest and develop new products. If we focus on price alone, we don t have a future.
Governments all around Asia have come to realise that a nation s comparative advantage in the regional and global trade of the 21st century lies in the price premiums-the added value -that its creative and innovative businesses can command both at home and abroad. In his 2010 New Year message, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called on his country s businesses to engage in relentless innovation and the creation of added value. It is the added value that IPRs protect.
It s cold out there
At the business level in Asian countries, IPRs provide much-needed shelter from the chill winds of local and foreign competition that now blow through economies previously protected by entrenched interests and trade barriers. In all Asian members of the World Trade Organisation, local businesses and even industries can no longer be nurtured through subsidies and overt preference. Alternative, but legal, obstacles to competition like IPRs must be built up and exploited.
There is a thirst to learn about these rights, about how businesses can use (and sometimes abuse) them to get ahead of the competition. At a governmental level, policymakers struggle to fit their own diverse economies with the rules of the IPR game written over the past couple of decades. As we will see, some of those rules seem to have been written to favour countries and businesses that have played the game for many years-who already have their reserves of Invisible Gold-and to maintain the competitive advantage of the IPR haves over the have-nots . That is a problem for the future. What we will try and do is explain how to play the game by the existing rules, which are not going to change soon.