Electronics news
Peter Ward
A round-up of the latest electronics news including: EU patent languages; UK Digital Radio Plan; UK protection of personal information; Agreement on financial message data; and OfCom debates bandwidth reservation for London Olympics.
Is Germany clearing the way for software patents?
Christopher Weber
A recent decision by the German Federal Supreme Court (Federal Supreme Court, GRUR 2010, 613 – "Dynamic Generation of Documents") has left many people wondering whether Germany is now clearing the way for software patents. Specifically, the opponents of software patents are criticising the decision as "opening the door to monopolising an extremely important tool of society" and "allowing the patenting of matters of course".
SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Limited [2010] EWHC 1829 (Ch)
Claire Chapman
The scope of copyright protection given to computer programs is again under scrutiny following the recent referral of nine questions to the CJEU by Mr Justice Arnold in the dispute between SAS Institute Inc. and World Programming Ltd.
China's proposal to regulate ebook industry
Victor Tse
On 9 October 2010, the General Administration of Press and Publication announced a proposal for regulating the future development and governance of China's electronic-book ("ebook") industry. The proposal defines an "ebook" as any publication containing digitised text, images, audio, video and other information content, and in particular, pre-installed or downloaded electronic content on storage media or in a portable display device.
OFTA helps minimise "mobile phone bill shock"
Victor Tse
With the growing popularity of smart phones and other internet-enabled mobile devices, the temptation to access online content has never been greater. However, for those less technically savvy, inadvertent or unintentional use of mobile data services often leads to an unexpectedly high mobile bill. This phenomenon, also known as "mobile bill shock", is a growing problem in Hong Kong.
Royalties or business profit: double taxation of software licence fees
Krzysztof Tusinski and Luisa
Zukowski
The problem of international double taxation arose as a result of different methods of taxation used in different countries. Bilateral and multilateral agreements on the avoidance of double taxation have been put into place in an attempt to resolve this problem and model conventions were implemented to standardise such agreements. The OECD Model convention is the most commonly used and various countries have signed conventions on the avoidance of double taxation based on the format provided by the OECD.
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