Free Trade Agreement Between Costa Rica and China

Professor Aurelio López-Tarruella Martinez of the University of Alicante makes us aware via IP Tango that on August 1, 2011, two Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) entered into force: between Peru and Korea and between Costa Rica and China. Let's focus on the latter.

Professor López-Tarruella Martinez writes: "The FTA between Costa Rica and China includes specific provisions on generic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore and on geographical indications apart from general obligations to comply with TRIPS and Doha Declaration on Public Health, and on technical cooperation. There is a provision on border measures as well." You can find them in articles 109-117 of Chapter 10 Intellectual Property. Read the IP Tango article here.

So now China has the following three FTAs in the Western Hemisphere:
Costa Rica (2011)
Peru (2009), see here
Chile (2005), see here.

continue reading ...

Can Copyright Save Chinese Folklore?

Deming Liu wrote an interesting 14 page essay about the idea to use copyright or a sui generis to salvage Chinese folklore. Liu explains that copyright traditionally is concerned with the creations of individuals rather the cumulative creations of an ethnic group or region. And the danger that a sui generis is susceptible in practice to the abuses of private monopolies or state arbitrariness.

Read Deming Liu, Can Copyright Lend Its Cinderellaic Magic to Chinese Folklore?, 5 John Marshall Review Intellectual Property Law 203, 2006, here (pdf).

continue reading ...