Anderson

This isn't strictly about taxation of IP - that £130m that Google are apparently coughing up to the UK tax authorities is apparently based on their revenues from selling advertising to UK customers rather than from licensing IP (according to press reports; I'm not inclined to assume that these are a guaranteed clear explanation of anything to do with UK tax). But, of course, anything Google earns is driven by IP so I figure it's pretty fair game for this blog. If reasonably accurate, the reports are interesting, because UK tax rules (and the tax rules in most other countries too) aren't based on revenues booked in the UK alone. Instead, they're based on the UK profits attributable to taxable activities in the UK. We have some new rules here in the UK, which came into force in April, which attempt to tax profits which have been diverted out of the UK artificially - but that's still profits, not revenues, and they still need someone to be doing something in the UK...

If the measure of a brand is all of the market information embodied therein, then the GE brand has certainly attracted a lot of recent attention. The move of its corporate headquarters from suburban Connecticut to Boston has been widely noted, including by this blogger . Of less notice, perhaps, was the report last week that GE had reached agreement with the China-based Qingdao Haier Co. Ltd., a unit of the Haier Group , for the sale of GE’s white goods appliance business, including such products as refrigerators, freezers, clothes washers and dryers. The transaction price was announced at $5.4 billion. To put this amount in perspective, GE was more or less forced to walk away in late 2015 from a $3.3 billion offer from Sweden’s Electrolux, due to opposition from the U.S. antitrust authorities. Electrolux, GE and Whirlpool are the three dominant players in this industry. Haier is reported to have merely a 5% market share, which is not expected to attract antitrust scrutiny (althoug...

Today, Oxfirst sponsored a talk by the distinguished Rt. Honorable Professor Robin Jacob defending patents.   Another commentator has also stepped forward to defend patents.   Recently, attorney John R. Harris authored an article titled, “ The Patent System is Under Assault:Startups, Should You Care? Ten Things About Patents that Startups Need to Consider ,” published in the 44 American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly Journal 27 (Winter 2015).   Mr. Harris outlines the current assault by describing one of the attacks coming from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (affectionately known as the so-called “Death Squad” for patents) and its rate of 80% in finding patents invalid in Inter Partes Review Proceedings.   Notably, the U.S. Supreme Court has recently granted certiorari in Cuozzo Speed Techs., LLC v. Lee to determine whether the Patent Trial and Appeal Board is applying the correct standard in reviewing patents for invalidity.  ...

Dr. Joe Wyse , a partner (and colleague of this blogger) at the Israel-based IP boutique, Dr. Eyal Bresler & Co., has provided us with an interesting way of how the patent system may be used to prevent fraud in connection with the business of legal uses of cannabis. One of the most dynamic new areas of patent activity has been medical uses for cannabis, as start-ups seem to be cropping up at a pace commensurate with the legal production of the plant itself. An interesting angle on the possible financial risks in entering the space was suggested by Jeffrey H. Kramer of Kroll Global Fraud Report 2015-2016 , who focuses on what he claims are the particular risks of fraud in the field. Kramer writes as follows: “The risks of fraud in the medical marijuana industry are clear and pervasive. States, banks, private equity firms, insurance companies and others could unknowingly enter into a financial relationship that could prove disastrous without thorough domestic and international...

This blogger's first encounter with a patent attorney was watching, as a teenager, the sci-fi classic "The man who fell to earth" which starred the late David Bowie. For those of you who don't know the plot, Bowie plays an alien that lands on earth and proceeds to patent with the help of a patent attorney nine basic inventions. If you have not seen the film, then I won't reveal the rest of the plot. Spoilers can be found here and here .  Bowie played not only role in my future career, but was also an innovator in IP finance and issued  in 1997 the first celebrity bond in which he issued a security that paid an interest rate of 7.9% guaranteed out of the royalties received by Bowie on his works. A total of  US$55 million was issued in  bonds, which were all purchased by an insurance company. Bowie used the money to purchase his back catalogue from a former manager. The bonds were not a great success and Moody's downgraded them to just above junk status in 2004...

Our good friend, Dr. Roya Ghafele , has let us know that Oxfirst is offering another very exciting and timely free webinar.   The webinar is titled, “Patents Work: don’t erode the patent incentive.”   Here is a description of the talk: In recent years the patent system has come under increasing scrutiny from a host of different scholars. These critiques have been taken up by Competition authorities and Supreme courts. Not understanding the full value proposition of the patent system, poses a danger to innovation. The webinar is led by the distinguished Rt Hon. Professor Sir Robin Jacob , the Sir Hugh Laddie Chair at University College London and will be held on January 20, 2016 at 15.00 BST.   A brief bio for the Rt. Hon. Professor Sir Robin Jacob states: The Rt Hon. Professor Sir Robin Jacob , was as Lord Justice Jacob a judge in the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. He retired from the Court of Appeal in March 2011 (acknowledged in a valedictory address b...

The ECJ decision on the WebMindLicenses case (published 17 Dec 2015) - provides guidance on points to consider when determining whether a licensing agreement amounts to VAT ‘abuse’ (and, accordingly, points to watch to make sure your licensing agreement is  not  abusive!)  In this particular case, know-how had been licensed from Hungary to Madeira, an autonomous region of Portugal which has a preferential VAT rate compared to Hungary (mind you, almost everywhere has a preferential VAT rate when compared to Hungary!). The know-how was used to provide online services from Madeira to consumers worldwide, charging VAT in Madeira. Note that this sort of arrangement isn’t a lot of use now from a VAT-reduction perspective – the VAT rate charged on supplies to consumers is now the rate where the  consumer  is located, not the rate where the supplier is located. The Hungarian tax authorities claimed that the know-how transfer was essentially a sham and that the know-how...

This blogger's friend, Joren de Wachter , an IP consultant based on Brussels and TEDx presenter (see IP thought crime on YouTube ) has pointed me to Duke University's Centre for the Study of the Public Domain who have drawn our attention to the implications of the 1976 Copyright Act in the United States, which extended retroactively from 1978 copyright term from 56 years after creation of the works to 50 years after death of the author ( extended to 70 years in 1998 in line with European law) or 75 years (later extended to 95 years) for works made for hire and pre-1978 works). The Duke University site has a list of some of this blogger's favourite works affected by the decision , including Gunter Grass 's The Tin Dum ("Blechtrommel"), Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers or the movies North by Northwest and The Manchurian Candidate. These were all first released in 1959 and copyright protection would expire on 1 January 2016 under the previous law. There...