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Strategy scholars have documented in various empirical settings that firms seek and leverage stronger institutions to mitigate hazards and gain competitive advantage. In this paper, we argue that such “institution-seeking” behavior may not be confined to the pursuit of strong institutions: firms may also seek weak institutions to mitigate hazards. Using panel data from the global smartphone industry and recent patent wars among key industry rivals, we examine how smartphone vendors that are not directly involved in patent litigation strategically respond to increased litigation risks in this industry. We find that as patent wars intensify, smartphone vendors not involved in any litigation focus more of their business in markets with weaker intellectual property (IP) protection because of institutional arbitrage opportunities. This strategic response is more pronounced for vendors whose stocks of patents are small and whose home markets have weak-IP systems. Our study is the first to examine the relationship between heterogeneity in national patent systems and firms’ global strategies. It provides a more balanced view of firms’ institution-seeking behavior by documenting how they make strategic use of weaker institutions.

This article evaluates the effectiveness of two major European Union technical assistance programmes, IPR2 and IP Key, in shaping China’s regional intellectual property (IP) enforcement. It argues that although technical assistance programmes have been effective in influencing the national IP legal framework, it has been less successful in assisting regional policy enforcement. This is primarily the result of divergent economic priorities at the sub-national level. The article further assesses potential priorities for future IP technical assistance.

China is one of the most controversial fora for intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection. The current IPRs enforcement in China is the result of a combination of external pressure and internal drive, of the paradox of technology reliance and indigenous innovation, and of a mixture of incompatible history and culture with gradually changing social norms. This article aims to provide a critical assessment of the latest development in judicial enforcement of IPRs in China, including improving the professionalism and efficiency of the judicial process, increasing the adequacy of remedies and reducing judicial local protectionism. It concludes that the technical development of the IPRs judicial system is obvious and the remaining problems are relatively easy to correct. However, although China has also adopted measures to increase the power and independence of courts, the structural weakness of courts continues to remain. The Chinese judicial system, institutionally, is not independent, and judgments are influenced by the policy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Although the contemporary policy in China is to improve judicial protection of IPRs, the possible influence of the CCP policy in courts remains a concern for the long-term transformation of the IP system.

Assessment of China's intellectual property governance and protection (IPG&P) ecosystem elicits polarizing debates on the manner and efficiency of the system, with theft of intellectual property being an allegation levelled at one extreme. A systematic understanding of the evolution of various components of China's IPG&P - specifically administrative and judicial enforcement procedures (as well as processes), i.e., the \"institutional behaviour\" in the PRC in the context of effective functioning of the IPG&P ecosystem - are few and far between. This paper attempts to redress some of those research gaps and goes a step further to establish that a priori the IPG&P ecosystem could be seen to have evolved in China (even) before that in the West. Additionally, among nation-states in the 21st century, the performance of China's IPG&P ecosystem has shown the best improvement, with the institutional structures in the PRC helping (not hindering) an efficient and effective functioning of the IPG&P ecosystem.

This article systematically introduces and analyzes a number of aspects of the criminal enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR) in China, focusing on recent trends and developments. China has been under tremendous pressure from the US to expand the criminalization of its IP infringement. The article first summarizes the substantive criminal law regarding IP offenses in China and describes the main enforcement agencies and judicial organs responsible for the investigation and processing of IP crimes. Analysis of the substantive criminal IP law and enforcement practices shows a steady pattern of rapid criminalization, not only on the books but also in action. Newly promulgated judicial interpretations and notices substantially expand criminalization of IP infringements. In addition, the enforcement rates of IP and related crimes have been rising consistently and rapidly. There have also been numerous joint meetings, information exchanges, issuance of provisions, collaborative “strike-hard” enforcement campaigns and other major efforts initiated by the police, the prosecutors, and administrative agencies to facilitate agency cooperation and strengthen the criminal enforcement of IPR. However, accompanying this rapid criminalization of IP infringement control are serious problems rooted in the Chinese criminal judicial system, including local protectionism, the lack of respect for procedural justice as well as the protection of defendants’ basic rights, and inadequate training, professional incompetence, misconduct, or corruption.

This short paper looks at provisions concerning very specific aspects provided for at international, regional and national level and analyzes the level of harmonization between such. Given the importance of provisional measures (and especially of preliminary injunctions) for the protection of intellectual property rights, the provisions concerning this subject were the main focus of our analysis. Found in TRIPS, the EU IP Enforcement Directive and national Romanian statutory provisions, we've concluded that these are not directly applicable in disputes in Romanian courts and were therefore, as a result of multiple international obligations, supposed to be harmonized. We've looked at different aspects in parallel with the development of implementation mechanisms and found that, despite the aforementioned obligations, not even the Directive is fully TRIPS compliant, let alone the Romanian national statutory provisions. We've therefore concluded that, even if common sense would dictate that protection at more levels would equal more protection this is not necessarily true, given the fact that multiple harmonization requirements create more opportunity for divergent implementation results - influenced by either benign factors (different national legal traditions, different interpretations) or malign (lack of perspective and/or understanding, rush to implementation).

President Barack Obama's 2011 State of the Union address emphasized encouraging innovation, which he believes is vital to keeping the US a global leader. Everyone knows what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of time. People need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world, said the president on January 25. The author was drawn to the president's terminology. According to a Times speech pattern analysis of State of the Union addresses, Obama used \"innovation\" or related terms 11 times in his 2011 address -- more than three times as frequently as any of his or any other president's State of the Union addresses. The president did not mention any specific form of intellectual property (IP) in his address, but he didn't need to. Anyone who has a sense of recent history or has read this column regularly is confident that IP protection was the proverbial pink elephant that cast a shadow over the president's address.

The latest initiatives include an \"IP Tutor Program\", a pilot scheme to be launched in early 2005 in which some qualified teachers will be trained by IPD and assigned to different schools to teach IPR knowledge. He said Hong Kong's enforcement efforts in IPR protection have effectively combatted piracy activities in Hong Kong.

The latest initiatives include an \"IP Tutor Program\", a pilot scheme to be launched in early 2005 in which some qualified teachers will be trained by IPD and assigned to different schools to teach IPR knowledge. He said Hong Kong's enforcement efforts in IPR protection have effectively combatted piracy activities in Hong Kong.

The theme for RSA 2015 was the title of this article and sound advice in an era fast evolving into a global IoT (Internet of Things) environment. Two (of many) trends discussed at the show highlighted that digital crime has accelerated globally, and the attack surface (read criminal opportunity) of the IoT vastly compounds this growth rate. The issue is if the security professionals can keep pace with the emerging risks to business operations that the IoT enables. To say that the cyber industry is growing to address these risks is an understatement. At the 2015 RSA Conference of the 409 exhibitors, 115 were new entrants at the show. Today's security professional also has to be ready for CHANGE, and challenge \"yesterday's\" security thinking. Cyber criminals are breaching IP connections to move laterally into enterprise networks to hack everything from POS (Point of Sale) systems and databases, to video surveillance cameras and access control devices.