Have you been appointed by a family member to be the personal representative or executor of their estate? Have you considered how you would like your own personal possessions to be distributed? This book was written to introduce and familiarize its readers with easy to understand estate closing techniques and probate procedures. It is the author's intent to educate any individual that is either faced with closing an estate, or anyone that may be considering how their own estate might be administered. After reading this book, you too may consider yourself a professional as you set out to close your estate with ease.

Intellectual property is one of the most valuable forms of property in the modern world. From the perspective of companies producing knowledge-intensive goods, it encourages technological innovations for the benefit of humanity. For consumers of technology, it can be seen as a restriction on access to knowledge that inflates corporate rents. When genetic material crucial for human life is isolated from the commons, engineered and turned into private intellectual property, dissent is likely to emerge. Felipe Filomeno uses the case of Monsanto in South American soybean agriculture to theorize about the emergence and change of intellectual property regimes. Based on official documents, interviews, journalistic material, and academic literature, the study shows not only the relations of competition, coercion, and alliances that lie behind the post-1980 global upward ratchet of intellectual property protection but also the strategies that have the potential to reverse it.

The comprehensive research review discusses some of the most important and influential articles published on the history of intellectual property. The seminal works encompass a broad variety of specific legal fields, periods and methodological perspectives. It focuses on the three main subfields of intellectual property: patent, copyright and trademark law. This important research review will be of a great interest to legal historians, economic historians and anyone interested in intellectual property and its history.

Small corporations are the leading forces in the development of new technologies, and patents are their most important assets. The role of patents in joint ventures, funding, marketing, and the strategic alliances that help small corporations grow and prosper is inestimable. Heines' book offers executives in small, rising corporations an in-depth, practical, useful comprehension of the patent system--the knowledge they need to understand, and work with, professional patent attorneys. With detailed examples and scenarios to illustrate legal principles, and with forms and advice to help develop a corporate patent strategy, the book provides critical information accessibly in a comprehensible manner and without dangerous, naive oversimplification. It will quickly prove useful to corporate decision makers and to academics teaching small business methods and management.

Among the book's special features is its focus on the perspective, interests, and special needs of small corporations, and its abundance of various hypothetical technology scenarios, illustrating the legal principles that Heines dissects and analyzes. Another special feature is the balance it strikes between thouroughness and clarity: it gives a lot of information but in a way that non-attorneys can easily understand. Heines explains and illustrates the principles of patent law and describes how to organize and implement an internal patent policy. He goes on to show how to accommodate patenting with ongoing research, how to maintain patent rights while working with outside vendors, how to distinguish between patenting and freedom-to-operate, and how to react and respond to the patents of competitors. Also addressed are the small corporation's need to control costs and ways to make patenting decisions in a manner that will provide maximum flexibility in deciding when and where to patent without relinquishing organizational control.

The current volume of the Comparative Law Yearbook of International Business addresses a variety of issues relating to the regulation of business entities and investment, as well as a range of general issues In the fields of business entities and investment, practitioners from Panama, Brazil, Chile, Russia, Gibraltar, Canada, Singapore, Romania, Indonesia, and Hong Kong examine protection of minority shareholders, antitrust and competition law, securities regulation, corporate taxation, fund administration and management, joint ventures, protection of foreign investment, regulation of mutual funds, and corporate governance. Commentators from Nigeria, the United States, Japan, Spain, and The Netherlands also review issues relating to copyright and trade mark protection, court jurisdiction, insolvency, and telecommunications.

This book, the third in the series, follows the themes considered in the first two volumes and brings together perspectives on copyright from law, politics, economics, cultural studies and social theory in an effort to forge a truly coherent and meaningful agenda for the future of copyright. New Directions in Copyright Law, Volume 3 comprises thoughtful, critical and often challenging contributions from an international, multidisciplinary network of scholars who continue the exploration of the role, function and theoretical basis of copyright law. Themes such as the developments in related rights and rights neighbouring on copyright are discussed as well as the protection of traditional knowledge and culture. Playing a leading role in stimulating international research and debate about the future of the copyright system, this book will be of great interest to copyright scholars and copyright stakeholders.

Patent laws are different in many countries, and inventors are sometimes at a loss to understand which basic requirements should be satisfied if an invention is to be granted a patent. This is particularly true for inventions implemented on a computer. While roughly a third of all applications (and granted patents) relate, in one way or another, to a computer, applications where the innovation mainly resides in software or in a business method are treated differently by the major patent offices in the US (USPTO), Japan (JPO), and Europe (EPO).

The authors start with a thorough introduction into patent laws and practices, as well as in related intellectual property rights, which also explains the procedures at the USPTO, JPO and EPO and, in particular, the peculiarities in the treatment of applications centering on software or computers. Based on this theoretical description, next they present in a very structured way a huge set of case studies from different areas like business methods, databases, graphical user interfaces, digital rights management, and many more. Each set starts with a rather short description and claim of the "invention," then explains the arguments a legal examiner will probably have, and eventually refines the description step by step, until all the reservations are resolved. All of these case studies are based on real-world examples, and will thus give an inexperienced developer an idea about the required level of detail and description he will have to provide.

Together, Closa, Gardiner, Giemsa and Machek have more than 70 years experience in the patent business. With their academic background in physics, electronic engineering, and computer science, they know about both the legal and the subject-based subtleties of computer-based inventions. With this book, they provide a guide to a patent examiner's way of thinking in a clear and systematic manner, helping to prepare the first steps towards a successful patent application.

Control of access to content has become a vital aspect of many business models for modern broadcasting and on-line services. Using the example of digital broadcasting, the author reveals the resulting challenges for competition, broadcasting, and telecommunications. "Controlling Access to Content" explores the relationship between electronic access control, freedom of expression and functioning competition. It scrutinizes the interplay between law and technique, and the ways in which broadcasting, telecommunications, and general competition law are inevitably interconnected. European law has widely harmonised the way conditional access is regulated in the Member States of the European Union. The author comments in detail on the relevant rules in European Court of Justice and the European Commission in its function as watchdog of European competition law. The relevant provisions in European broadcasting law, such as the right to short reporting and the so-called list of important events, are discussed extensively, as are the conditions that overrule the free-TV culture that was the essence of traditional broadcasting law. The broad and systematic screening of the existing regulatory framework makes this book an essential resource for all those who are concerned with the electronic control of access to content. With its in-depth analysis and explicit conclusions, "Controlling Access to Content" amply supplies the crucial understanding of this complex field that policy makers, regulators, and academics require. It investigates the implications of electronic access control, digitalization, and convergence for broadcasting, as well as the effects of the regulatory framework on innovation, competition, and consumer access to content. It demonstrates clearly at which points the chosen approach could backfire and generate undesirable side effects, and what lessons can be learned from the pay-TV case for other digital service sectors. Using many examples, the author explains for lawyers, consumer and industry representatives the main lines of the regulatory framework that apply to access-controlled broadcasting, how their interests are affected, and what changes the future might bring.

This book offers a comprehensive and critical evaluation of the distribution and ownership of digital content within the EU. The analysis builds on the debate surrounding 'digital exhaustion' and is focused around three generations of supply of digital content: hardcopy sales, downloads and online access. For each generation, the supplying act and the ability to further transfer what was supplied is scrutinized in the light of EU copyright and neighbouring rights law. Going beyond a description of case law, this book highlights inconsistencies and frictions caused by the CJEU and addresses the fate for novel business models, hybrid works and neighbouring rights. Finding that copyright is only one part of the puzzle, Simon Geiregat offers broader perspectives to the transferability discussion by involving impeding digital architecture (technical protection measures) and the 'data ownership' debate, and by bringing consumer contract law and property law as well as equal treatment into the analysis. Providing a rigorous overview of the law surrounding digital content, this will be a valuable read for academics and practitioners with an interest in EU copyright and the debates on propertization and transferability in the digital context. It will also be beneficial to music and film organisations and distributors involved in supplying digital content in the European market.

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Read the Introduction.

aThis comprehensive analysis of privacy in the information age challenges traditional assumptions that breeches of privacy through the development of electronic dossiers involve the invasion of oneas private space.a
--"Choice"

"The Digital Person challenges the existing ways in which law and legal theory approach the social, political, and legal implications of the collection and use of personal information in computer databases. Solove's book is ambitious, and represents the most important publication in the field of information privacy law for some years."
--"Georgetown Law Journal"

"Anyone concerned with preserving privacy against technology's growing intrusiveness will find this book enlightening."
--"Publishers Weekly"

"Solove . . . truly understands the intersection of law and technology. This book is a fascinating journey into the almost surreal ways personal information is hoarded, used, and abused in the digital age."
--"The Wall Street Journal"

"Daniel Solove is one of the most energetic and creative scholars writing about privacy today. The Digital Person is an important contribution to the privacy debate, and Solove's discussion of the harms of what he calls 'digital dossiers' is invaluable."
--Jeffrey Rosen, author of "The Unwanted Gaze" and "The Naked Crowd"

"Powerful theme."
--"Privacy Journal"

"This is not only a book you should read, but you should make sure your friends read it."
--"IEEE Review"

"Solove offers a book that is both comprehensive and easy to understand, discussing the changes that technology has brought to our concept of privacy. An excellentstarting point for much needed discussion."
--"Law Technology News"

"An unusually perceptive discussion of one of the most vexing problems of the digital age--our loss of control over our personal information. It's a fascinating journey into the almost surreal ways personal information is hoarded, used, and abused in the digital age. I recommend his book highly."
--Bruce Schneier

"Solove's book is the best exposition thus far about the threat that computer databases containing personal data about millions of Americans poses for information privacy."
--Pamela Samuelson, Chancellor's Professor of Law and Information Management at the University of California, Berkeley

"Solove drives his points home through considerable reconfiguration of the basic argument. Rather than casting blame or urging retreat to a precomputer database era, the solution is seen in informing individuals, challenging data collectors, and bringing the law up-to-date."
--"Choice"

"If you want to find out what a mess the law of privacy is, how it got that way, and whether there is hope for the future, then read this book."
--"Legal Times"

"Solove evaluates the shortcomings of current approaches to privacy as well as some useful and controversial ideas for striking a new balance. Anyone who deals with privacy matters will find a lot ot consider."
--"DM News"

"Solove's treatment of this particular facet is thoughtful, thorough, concise, and occasionally laced with humor. The present volume gives us reason to look forward to his future contributions."
--"The Law and Politics Book Review"

"Solove's book is useful, particularly as an overview on how these private and governmentdatabases grew in sophistication and now interact with one another."
--"Christian Science Monitor"

"A far-reaching examination of how digital dossiers are shaping our lives. Daniel Solove has persuasively reconceptualized privacy for the digital age. A must-read."
--Paul Schwartz, Brooklyn Law School

"The Digital Person is a detailed and approachable resource on privacy issues and the laws that affect them."
--"IT Conversations"

Seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, electronic databases are compiling information about you. As you surf the Internet, an unprecedented amount of your personal information is being recorded and preserved forever in the digital minds of computers. For each individual, these databases create a profile of activities, interests, and preferences used to investigate backgrounds, check credit, market products, and make a wide variety of decisions affecting our lives. The creation and use of these databases--which Daniel J. Solove calls "digital dossiers"--has thus far gone largely unchecked. In this startling account of new technologies for gathering and using personal data, Solove explains why digital dossiers pose a grave threat to our privacy.

The Digital Person sets forth a new understanding of what privacy is, one that is appropriate for the new challenges of the Information Age. Solove recommends how the law can be reformed to simultaneously protect our privacy and allow us to enjoy the benefits of our increasingly digital world.

The first volume in the series EX MACHINA: LAW, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

Patents summarizes four decades of pioneering research by F.M. Scherer on the economics of patent protection. This book is distinguished by concern for the role of patents in a global context and by thorough investigation into the utility of patent counts as instruments for measuring the magnitude and consequences of technological invention. The book also includes a detailed new introduction by F.M. Scherer. The seminal essays contained within the book are organized around three principal foci: how to identify and shape policies yielding optimal patent protection in domestic and international markets; using patent data to reveal important features of the economy; and interpreting the economic significance of patents as measures of innovation. Explored under the second focus are the relationships of patenting to firm size, market structure, demand, and how inventions flow through the economy to yield productivity gains. The third focus illuminates implications of the highly skewed distribution of individual patent values. Scholars working on innovation and science, technological change, and law and economics will find this an invaluable and interesting book. It will also appeal to practitioners involved in patent and antitrust matters.

In this brilliantly conceived and authoritative work, the eminent intellectual property specialist Nuno Pires de Carvalho focuses on the mechanisms, obligations, and opportunities of trade secret protection under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). With the powerful knowledge base derived from his long experience both at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), he illuminates the crucial relationship of antitrust and industrial property, clearly demonstrating in contrast to much received wisdom; the intrinsic pro-competitive nature of intellectual property and of industrial property in particular.Using an extraordinary wealth of practical detail, and offering hundreds of pointed hypothetical and actual examples, Pires de Carvalho dispels the murkiness around such essential concepts and provisions as the following: the inevitable interdependence of industrial property and antitrust law; abuses of patent rights and the vexed issue of patents and monopolies; the legal implications of international exhaustion under Article 6; the meaning of balance of rights and obligations under Article 7; divestiture and the fruits doctrine under Article 32; international cooperation in identifying antitrust violations in licensing agreements; protection of confidential information in court proceedings; protection of undisclosed test data against unfair commercial use under Article 39. 3; and the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism in the context of undisclosed information.Of special value in this book is the author's far-reaching analysis of the controversial emerging field of test data protection in industrial property. "The TRIPS Regime of Antitrust and Undisclosed Information" provides a practical and insightful explanation of the meaning of the relevant TRIPS provisions, of how they should be reflected in national law and how courts are expected to enforce them. It combines an easy-to-follow article-by-article commentary on the TRIPS Agreement with a theoretical scholarly analysis that makes of it an invaluable resource to all those who wish to understand industrial property rights at a deeper level. Lawyers, judges, scholars and government officials will find an abundance of information and legal analysis here that will help them identify antitrust issues and solutions to problems of trade secrets posed by the implementation of the TRIPS Agreement.

An established trademark provides recognition valuable to trade and sales promotion, and acts as an indication of quality. These undeniable functions of the trademark must be coupled with adequate protection to avoid jeopardizing these essential aspects. The need for unification, at least at the European level, can no longer be disregarded. The Community Directive and Regulation are the response to this need. This commentary provides the texts of essential legislation and offers an analysis of the Directive and Regulation, also in their "historical" context, as seen through the eyes of leading European experts in the field. Issues such as grounds for refusal, entitlement, registration procedures, jurisdiction and procedure in legal actions and the impact of the Community Trade Mark on applicants from non-member countries are addressed. This commentary is intended for both practitioners and scholars, as well as marketing managers, for interpreting the Community provisions in this specialized and important area. Moreover, since the Council Directive and the Commission Regulations have been transformed into national laws in many Member States of the EU, this commentary should be of use in the interpretation and analysis of national European trademark laws. This work is neither too scholarly nor too elementary, but couples the strong theoretical background and practical experience of contributors stemming from diverse legal and practical cultures.

This book presents a thorough exploration of the legal framework of EU digital copyright law from the perspective of the end-user. It provides a detailed examination of the implications that the spectacular rise of this new actor creates for the interplay between the EU copyright system and human rights law, competition law and other important policies contained in the EC Treaty. This comprehensive, book is crucial reading for lawyers, policymakers and academics.

Written in simple layman's terms, this book explains in detail how to write an effective patent application that can be filed for less than $100.

Information technology for intellectual property protection has become an increasingly important issue due to the expansion of ubiquitous network connectivity, which allows people to use digital content and programs that are susceptible to unauthorized electric duplication or copyright and patent infringement. Information Technology for Intellectual Property Protection: Interdisciplinary Advancements contains multidisciplinary knowledge and analysis by leading researchers and practitioners with technical backgrounds in information engineering and institutional experience in intellectual property practice. Through its discussions of both engineering solutions and the social impact of institutional protection, this book fills a gap in the existing literature and provides methods and applications for both practitioners and IT engineers.

An exploration of EU policy towards copyright enforcement on the Internet, examining the EU Telecoms Package from 2007-9. This book explains the puzzling case of copyright in telecoms law, and includes discussion of 3-strikes (graduated response), ISP liability and the French Hadopi law.

The interface between intellectual property and other fields, such as public health and biotechnology, has raised expectations from both developed and developing countries. At the same time, a variety of issues have arisen from these relationships. Debates over public health, protection of traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions or expressions of folklore, and the control of biological resources and access to genetic resources pose major challenges to the current global system of intellectual property. This thoughtful book serves not only to contribute to these ongoing debates but also, through in-depth analysis and well-grounded recommendations, to move them closer to resolution in a manner beneficial to all interested parties.Among the matters discussed are the following: intellectual property and public health; intellectual property and traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions or expressions of folklore; intellectual property and plant varieties, biodiversity and access to genetic resources; use of marks and other signs on the Internet; and the international framework in respect to geographical indications.Drawing on prodigious familiarity with relevant conventions and international legal instruments in the field and debates on these issues as carried out under international bodies; including the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) and the World Health Organization(WHO), as well as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the African Model Legislation, the author offers clear, well-thought-out proposals on how to respond to these issues. In the same vein, the author makes a number of proposals on how to strike a balance between the exclusive rights of the patentee and the right to public health or access to medicines, especially in the context of the HIV/AIDS crisis.In addition, holding that the owners or possessors of traditional knowledge or traditional cultural expressions or expressions of folklore are entitled to intellectual property rights protection, he advocates the development of a global and binding international protection instrument that takes particular features of these rights into consideration. He proposes the extension of the scope of applicability of the requirement of the disclosure of the country of origin of genetic resources, both at the international and national levels. He also proposes refinements to the system for multilateral notification and registration of geographical indications in respect to wine and spirits and the extension of the higher protection of geographical indications to other products and suggests new ways to approach unsettled issues arising from the use of marks or other signs on the Internet.As a deeply informed analysis of how to integrate intellectual property rights into the international development process, this book takes some giant steps toward the general recognition of the real parameters of the most severe problems plaguing the developing world and offers reachable measures toward significant improvement of those problems. It will be of interest to all professionals, officials, and academics concerned with the equitable administration of intellectual property rights.

Over much of the past century, the law governing third-party importation of non-counterfeit, genuine goods has been obscured by conceptual uncertainty. In recent years, the debate over the gray market has centered on the fundamental reasons for trademark protection, and has raised the possibility of conflict between the two traditionally recognized purposes of trademark law--protecting consumers from deception and protecting trademark owners from lost sales. Hiebert discusses the evolution of the universality and territoriality principles of trademark law, and develops a new understanding of the role of goodwill in resolving trademark infringement issues. Beginning with a review of the earliest days of trademark law, Hiebert traces the development of the twofold purpose and territoriality doctrines in the United States, and examines in detail the cases, statutes, and regulations governing parallel imports. Unlike other recent treatments of the subject, this work benefits from the availability of important archival materials, and devotes considerable attention to the nineteenth-century antecedents of modern parallel importation doctrine, and to the evolution of trademark doctrine within the broader context of American legal realism.

Called the business crime wave of the 21st century, trademark counterfeiting and product piracy are worldwide in scope and cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars every year. High technology and the globalization of business have made it possible to counterfeit and pirate a seemingly limitless number of products, from t-shirts, designer jeans, films and books to auto and airplane parts, and prescription drugs. The 1995-1996 trade dispute between the U.S. and China shows how serious the problem has become for American business and for U.S. diplomatic relations. Paradise explores the history of counterfeiting and piracy, shows how they are done, and the strategies that U.S. businesses are using to combat them. With interviews, commentary, and anecdotes by corporate attorneys, business leaders, and private investigators, this well-written book is essential for anyone interested in the damage that violations of intellectual property law are inflicting on world trade and what is being done to stop it. Called the business crime wave of the 21st century, trademark counterfeiting and product piracy are worldwide in scope and cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars every year. High technology and the globalization of business have made it possible to counterfeit and pirate a seemingly limitless number of products, from t-shirts, designer jeans, films and books to auto and airplane parts, and prescription drugs. The 1995-1996 trade dispute between the U.S. and China shows how serious the problem has become for American business and for U.S. diplomatic relations. Paradise explores the history of counterfeiting and piracy, shows how they are done, and the strategies that U.S. businesses are using to combat them. With interviews, commentary, and anecdotes by corporate attorneys, business leaders, and private investigators, this well-written book is essential for anyone interested in the damage that violations of intellectual property law are inflicting on world trade and what is being done to stop it. Paradise lays out the problem in Chapter 1 with a clear explanation of the differences between trademarks, copyrights, and patents, and the laws covering each. In Chapter 2 he looks at the role played by organized crime, gray market goods, the lack of intellectual property laws, and ultimately the threat to U.S. business. He discusses the recent investigations and disputes with China, and its aftermath throughout Southeast Asia. Chapter 4 focuses on the knockoff, chapter 5 on street peddlers and flea markets (and how merchants are retaliating), and chapter 6 on the tracking of counterfeiters. The entertainment industries and the pharmaceutical industries are then closely examined. He follows with equally comprehensive (and chilling) studies of automobile and aircraft parts counterfeiting and piracy in cyberspace. Paradise ends with a look at what is being done to counteract the inroads that piracy and counterfeiting have made into the global economy, and offers a provocative call for more and better efforts in the future.

This book explores how the entire toolbox of intellectual property (IP) protection and management are successfully combined and how firms generate value from IP. It provides a framework of archetypes which firms will be able to self-identify with and which will allow companies to focus on the IP and IP Management issues most relevant to them.