Organizational Perspectives on Intellectual-Property Reform

This chapter presents a novel organizational perspective on “patent reform” in the U.S. Supreme Court, Congress, and the federal courts during 2006–2020. Debates between proponents of strong and weaker patents can be understood as a conflict between entities that rely on integrated business models for monetizing R&D, which deploy non-IP complementary assets to capture returns on innovation, and entities that rely on non-integrated business models, which monetize R&D through licensing and other IP-dependent contractual relationships. Weak-IP regimes induce an organizational bias that favors integrated and platform-based firms that capture returns on innovation within internal capital and information markets while impeding entry by smaller, R&D-specialized entities that capture returns on innovation through external capital and informational markets. By contrast, strong-IP regimes enable firms and other entities to select from the full range of more and less integrated structures for executing the innovation and commercialization process.

Russiaʼs Mass Privatization in 1992–1994 (on the materials of St. Petersburg) Part 2

В статье представлен анализ чекового (ваучерного) этапа российской приватизации в 1992–1994 годах, особенности его осуществления на территории Санкт-Петербурга. Сформулированы характерные черты реформы собственности в России, ее видение командой реформаторов, а также основные пробелы и недостатки данной модели. Показан процесс формирования концепции приватизации, обозначены основные законы, ставшие ее правовым фундаментом. Отражена динамика реализации политики приватизации на фоне общественно-политической ситуации в стране. Затрагивается вопрос реакции парламента на проводимые преобразования. Выявлены основные последствия приватизации для разных отраслей экономики и социальной сферы российского общества. The article analyzes the so called voucher privatization (1992-1994) and focuses on its realization in the territory of St. Petersburg. The article characterizes Russian property reform as it was seen by its initiators and analyzes its limitations and disadvantages. The article traces the origin of the concept of privatization, analyzes its legal basis, its major laws and patterns. The article analyzes the dynamics of privatization policy against the background of the social and political situation in the country. The article analyzes the parliamentary attitudes to the initiated reforms. The article analyzes the consequences of privatization for economic and social spheres of Russian life.

The Treaty as to Commercial Relations of 1903: China and Extraterritoriality

The history of United States and Chinese intellectual property relations formally began with the signing of the Treaty as to Commercial Relations in 1903. The next three years saw the Chinese government frequently present revised versions of the 1903 Treaty’s implementation terms, with the 1905 Shangpu Draft responding to foreign merchant requests by removing its commitment to extraterritoriality—a regime whereby Western citizens in China were subject solely to the laws of their own country and not to Chinese laws. In this article, I document the intellectual property violations by Americans and Europeans in China, and how the legal case made by China for the removal of extraterritoriality, specifically for intellectual property violations, was a sign in itself that China was increasingly attentive to the mechanisms and constraints involved in legal reform. The collapse of the negotiations in 1906 would serve as a critical juncture in the commitment and interest of China to pursue intellectual property reform, with the US and China not signing another treaty concerning copyright until 1946. The refusal by the US to compromise on extraterritoriality contributed, in part, to the ‘four decades of inaction’ in intellectual property affairs.

The Impact of Intellectual Property Reforms on ASEAN Member Countries

A number of studies have been conducted with regard to the economic impact of intellectual property reform on economic growth. Majority of these studies, particularly works of an empirical nature, have focused on highly industrialized economies, with the findings supporting the conclusion that intellectual property rights (IPRs) have been economically beneficial to industrialized economies. Little research has been conducted on the economic benefit of IPR within developing countries. The current study considers the impact of IPR within ASEAN member countries to determine whether reform activities have been beneficial to IPR activity. The findings are mixed, suggesting that for some categories of IPR, reform activities have been beneficial while in other instances, regulatory reforms have not had a discernable impact. Additionally, the findings also indicate that intellectual property reform, where effective has been most effective in generating additional intellectual property activity, as measured by intellectual property applications, amongst non-residents, rather than amongst domestic registrants. This finding supports the conclusion that reform activities have engendered confidence amongst foreign firms and foreign nationals.

“The Most Blessed Hilary Held an Estate”: Property, Reform, and the Canonical Life in Tenth-Century Aquitaine

This article explores thinking and practice regarding property at houses of canons from the mid-ninth to mid-eleventh centuries, through a case study of the charters of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand in Poitiers. Since Late Antiquity, Christian orders debated the legitimacy of private property, with most rejecting it in favor of exclusively common holdings. For houses of canons, property became a defining issue in the Central Middle Ages: Carolingian legislation in 816 asserted that canons (unlike monks) could hold private property, while the order of regular canons, which emerged in the eleventh century, rejected it as corrupt. The role of property at houses of canons in the interim period, meanwhile, has been largely neglected by scholars. This essay argues that Saint-Hilaire embraced Carolingian acceptance of private property among canons, but that that stance did not preclude protection of joint property and interest in the common life. The resulting detailed understanding of both the quotidian functioning of property at a tenth-century house and the ideals that drove its regulation inform my concluding comments on two broader topics: the role of wealth and property in a dedicated religious life, and the nature of reform movements in the church of the Central Middle Ages.