Due to the ASEAN countries being the third largest export amount of Japan (top two were the United States and China), the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry was released a joint statement on May 25, 2015. JPO（Japan Patent Office） with the relevant heads of ASEAN authorities had implemented a wide range of support activities on intellectual property rights in 2015 and 2016.

In 2016, JPO and the ASEAN countries will contribute to the realization of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). The items of improvements in sharing of information and knowledge as following:
1. cooperation between Japan and ASEAN, in order to promote their mutual prosperity;
2. understanding of intellectual property rights (especially patents) being the importance of the countries’ sustainable economic development. They will promote through trade, investment, innovation and technology transfer;
3. understanding of intellectual property-related cooperation on Japan and ASEAN will help to achieve AEC.

In addition to the joint statement, the ASEAN will also hold a public forum in the Japanese city of Nara on May 26, 2015. On the forum, the ASEAN Foreign national authorities will illustrate the status of intellectual property rights’ regulations, and the protection of Japanese companies. JPO also will promote its cooperation with the ASEAN countries to protect intellectual property rights. In the long run, the Japanese government believes that the improvement and cooperation of the ASEAN countries will help to improve the local business activities of the Japanese business environment, and also help ASEAN domestic economy development.

To promote innovation and industrial development of green energy, and to meet the global trend of green economy, the Intellectual Property Office in Taiwan (IPO) in early 2014 implemented an accelerated examination for applicants who are inventors of “green-technology or related technology”. The goal of creating accelerated examination is to increase the efficiency and quality of patent reviews. By now in June, 2015, IPO has accepted 64 green technology patent applications and averagely it took only 93 days to review one patent application. In all 64 applications, 93.7% are domestic applicants; 54.7% of applications are from industry and 15.6% are from academic.

IPO has been reviewing green technology patent applications in priority due to the decision announced in 2014; and currently among applications, half of the applications are reviewed and decided that efficiently enhanced green technology patent portfolio in Taiwan. Because of the improved green technology patent portfolio and its accelerated examination, the industry would be able to plan for its global patent portfolio in advance and to assist Taiwan to become the next innovative location of green energy industry and at the same time to promote the economic development in Taiwan.

To boost industrial transformation, the Executive Yuan held the “Productivity 4.0: Strategy Review Board Meeting” on June 4-5th , 2015. The GDP per capita of manufacturing and service industries, including machinery, metal processing, transportation vehicles, 3C, food, textile, logistics, health care, and agriculture, are expected to be over 10 million NT dollars by 2024.

This meeting focuses on three topics: Productivity 4.0 industry and technology development strategy, advanced development strategy on advanced manufacturing and innovation application, and strategy on engineering smart tech talents cultivation and Industry-academic Cooperation. The three main themes to be used to put the advanced manufacturing into force are smart automation and robots, sensing and control technologies from Internet of Things (IoT), and technologies used in analyzing the big data. As a result, the digitalization of small- and medium-sized business and smart operation of big business are as the cornerstones to build service-oriented systems and develop advanced manufacturing in R.O.C.. Facing challenges of labor shortages and aging labor forces, the Executive Yuan is planning to implement “Productivity 4.0” to stimulate the process of industry transformation of value-added innovation and provide new products and services in global market.

In implementing the above-mentioned policy goals, the Executive Yuan is planning three directions to be followed. First, global competitiveness is depended upon key technologies. As OEMs, manufacturing industry in R.O.C. is unable to provide products of self-owned brand and is vulnerable while facing challenges from other transnational companies. Second, the Premier, Dr. Mao Chi-kuo, made reference of the bicycle industry’s successful development model as an example for the Productivity 4.0 “A-Team” model. Through combining technologies and organizations, the aim is to build competitive supply chains across all the small- and medium-sized business. Finally, the new skills training and the cultivation of talents are more urgent than ever before. While technical and vocational schools, universities and postgraduate studies are needed to be equipped with sufficient fundamental knowledge, those already in the job market have to learn the skills and knowledge necessary for industrial transformation so that they could contribute their capabilities and wisdom for Ourfuture.

The Executive Yuan’s “Smart Internet White Paper” (hereinafter as White Paper) was compiled through the collection of opinions from the Internet and through a variety of interest groups within the time span for three months. Following the enthusiastic input from the general public the White Paper was finalized on June 2015, serving as guidelines for regulatory authorities in promoting some polices relevant for the current internet/digital age. The White Paper consists of three major values, namely, “the 3C Rules”, which are the rules of “ Communication between diversified Parties ”,“Connection between Internet and Practice ”and “Cooperation among the general public”. The White Paper’s administrative body set out the important subjects of interest for discussion, inviting collected opinions about these subjects concerning the Internet through a platform provided by the National Development Council, linking through other social media platforms as well (for instance, V-Taiwan and Facebook etc.); Having compiled all these opinion, the regulatory authorities in charge reviewed them, drew conclusions and organized the elicited public opinions into regulatory themes and topics into concrete action plans.

“Based on the People’s Opinions ”, “Public and Private Sectors Cross- Cooperation”, and “Innovative Governance”, are three core concepts enunciated by the White Paper. The White Paper’s framework spans over five areas, “Basic Environment”, “Transparent Governance”, “Smart Life”, “Internet Economy” and “Smart Land”; and there are sixteen subjects under these five areas. With reference to the subject “Information and Communication Environment to Prepare” of “Basic Environment”, the government will set up a program of information and communication technology (hereafter as ICT) basic infrastructure, to expand the use of ICT in daily life and governmental service, to build the network of hyperlink service and to promote the development of smart life and city. Facing international tendency to more and more stringent requirements on data security, the government addresses too the “Data Security and Privacy Protection of the Internet”, to increase data security industries' competitive capability, advancing the protection for data security and privacy protection of the internet, constituting an high quality online environment, enhancing the governance and the compliance for the regulation of data security and promoting the information security joint mechanism.

Regarding to the subject “E-Government Service ”for “Transparent Governance”, in order to reduce the difference of digital technology between cities, and promote the competitive capability of the whole nation, the government will push its e-government service ahead, with the IOT and online platform for big data, open data, cloud computing, social media, e-joint; and analyzing and using the collected big data to support the needs of citizens actively, taking care of the vulnerable populace, who do not possess any digital equipment, through the provision of active innovative service for everyone. With respect to the subject “Smart Health” of “Smart Life”, the government will create smart health service with an holistic approach to health care and medicine, further advancing the building telemedicine and smart health care systems for rural communities.

Witnessing the fastly contaging trend of youths seeking to create their own business through the internet platform and developing innovative services or applications. Furthermore the governmental portal sites of resources for businesses, online services with emerging communication technologies, and measures to facilitate the obtainment of capitals are in continual development. For the flourishing of internet and the related technologies available to all, for the promotion of “ Innovation and Startups” and the “Internet Economy”, the government will set up a single portal site to provide the information which the government as put out to foster new businesses , hence rightly enhancing our eco-system for innovation and startups, and the two-way cooperation of e-commerce platform between the domestic and foreign industries. And the government will provide the domestic platforms assistance to expand their overseas market, and guidance to help industries develop the online to offline business model. Besides regarding the subject “Smart Emergency and Disaster Response” of “Smart Land”, the work of the government focuses on the building of a cooperative system linking the private sector, completing the monitoring network and database for emergency and disaster response, and at the same time using big data and crowd sourcing, to promote the accuracy of decisions, in order to gather the resources rapidly.

Abstract:

The international legal system for the intellectual property rights has changed due to the alterations of the development environment. Take the development and implications of patent law for example. The Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition published a report, “Declaration on Patent Protection Regulatory Sovereignty under TRIPS,” which indicates particular importance when it comes to accommodating the law to changed circumstances. One of the key premises is the role of patents in corporate management has changed. Patents are increasingly used as strategic assets to influence on the competition conditions rather than as a defensive means to protecting research and development outcomes. What matters is that the shift of the patent from a right of defense to a commercial tool affects the manner in which the right to exclude operates in practice. At the same time, there are a numbers of new legislations on patents dealing with non-practicing come into effect in the US.

Furthermore, with the development on environment and policies, in the copyright, for example, the purpose of the United Kingdom to the copyright has amended in order to strike the balance between protection of rights and open access. However, in our case, the results of research and development are difficult to exercise in copyright. On that condition, the observations and comparison on transformation of the international intellectual property cannot be over emphasized, it could be utilized in pursuit of supporting research and proposing recommendations to the legal norms.

Keywords: Intellectual property, patent law, copyright law, transformation of research, and development achievements.

<Source:Yi-Ting Chen, Trend Observations of Transformation in Intellectual Property Rights, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY LAW REVIEW, 27(4), 55-70 (2015)>

Legal Research on Statutory Governace of Mandatory and Prohibitory Provisions to Be Included in Standard Contracts for Gift Certificates

Abstract:

At present, based on the categories of service or goods, there are 18 Mandatory Provisions to be Included in and Prohibitory Provisions of Standard Form Contract for all sorts of gift certificates. Problems of application arise when a shop sells several kinds of service or goods.

It is necessary that the gift certificates of the issuers if the related authorities could unify those 18 statutes for all kinds of services or goods. It would also facilitate the administrial inspect and check and consumer protection.

This research will analysis and compare the gift certificates regulations in USA, Canada, Europe, Japan and China. Finally, the timeline for law-making process, including short term, mid-term, and long term will be suggested in the research project.

Keywords: prepaid card, gift certificate, gift card, voucher

<Source:Yi-Chun Lai, Legal Research on Statutory Governace of Mandatory and Prohibitory Provisions to Be Included in Standard Contracts for Gift Certificates, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY LAW REVIEW, 27(5), 31-57 (2015)>