Within a year after the 1787 Edinburgh edition of his poems, American editions…were published in both Philadelphia and New York. Ever since we [Americans] have adopted the beauty, the humor and the wisdom of Robert Burns as part of our own culture and our own idiom—-often, even usually, without knowing the source in Scotland’s ploughman poet. [Montgomery, James M. (1998) “How Robert Burns Captured America,” Studies in Scottish Literature: Vol. 30: Iss. 1, at…

To ensure that Hong Kong’s system continues to meet present-day circumstances and be in alignment with Government’s vision of developing Hong Kong into a regional innovation and technology hub, Hong Kong Government appointed an Advisory Committee on Review of the Patent System in Hong Kong in 2011(the “Advisory Committee”) to review and advise it on (a) how the Administration should position Hong Kong’s patent system and (b) how best to implement suggested changes to the…

As a principle, Taiwan adopts a “first to file” trademark registration system.  Under the system, fame and extensive use are not the requirements for registering a trademark.  In addition, under Article 2 of the Trademark Act in Taiwan, the holder of a trademark cannot claim its right under the Act unless the trademark has been registered in Taiwan. Sometimes, however, the junior user of a trademark is more famous than the senior user/the registrant of…

Before you begin selling your products on a U.S. online marketplace like Amazon, Etsy or Rakuten, there are three intellectual property considerations to make: clearance, acquisition and enforcement. This article provides a summary of all three considerations and includes steps to take to help mitigate risk, decrease instances of infringers and position your product for success from a U.S. perspective. CLEARANCE First, you want to ensure the product (including product design) and the brand name…

For the Patent and Trial Appeal Board (“PTAB”), the Administrative Patent Judges (“APJs”) are appointed by the Secretary of Commerce in consultation with the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  For an inter parties review of a patent, three APJs conduct the instituted review and determine if claims of a patent are unpatentable.  Is the appointment of the APJs unconstitutional because it violates the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.?  The answer…

A recent decision of the Three-Member Court of Appeals of Komotini (Felonies Department), dated 19/11/2019, has been intensely debated by the national media as resulting to the first “real” prison sentence that has ever been imposed in our country to a website owner for illegally distributing copyright-protected content.  Although the judgement has not been published yet, according to the media, the owner of the “pirate” websites “greekstars.net” and “greekstars.co”, has been sentenced to five years…