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Marie-Louise's picks – January 2009 Monday, January 5, 2009 8:00am — IP Thinktank Global Week in Review

Here are my picks of the intellectual property news that broke in the blogosphere and internet over the past month and most captured my interest. I also give my pick of the upcoming IP events to pencil into your diary for the month ahead.

Please join the discussion by adding your comments.

Obama-Biden transition site Change.gov content now under creative commons attribution license

This move was met with great support from some. Others cautioned that it is no indicator of the Obama’s administration’s philosophy on copyright and is not such a big concession of rights considering the law provides that federal government content is in the public domain. In any case, the move gives a publicity boost to creative commons. Personally, I think this sets a great example to governments and others to consider the various copyright alternatives available rather than automatically default to the ‘all rights reserved’ model. So too, it can only assist open and unfettered debate.   (EFF) (Creative Commons) (Lessig) (Michael Geist) (IPKat) (TorrentFreak) (Techdirt) (Creative Commons) (ReadWriteWeb)

The ANC sought to stop the emerging political party, Cope, from using the name Congress of the People arguing that no person or party should be allowed to appropriate the name of the 1955 Congress of the People, in which the Freedom Charter was adopted. The Pretoria High Court dismissed the ANC’s application with costs. The ANC has harshly criticised the decision and is expected to seek leave to appeal.

Hong Kong is not the same as China

By Danny Friedmann

Hong Kong has been part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 1997. But the former British crown colony has a very different and nearly autonomous jurisdiction from its motherland. How do the PRC and Hong Kong relate to each other in regard to the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR)?

United but different

On 19 December 1984 the governments of the PRC and the United Kingdom signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong[1]. The PRC and the United Kingdom declared together that under the principle of "One Country, Two Systems", Hong Kong would keep its capitalist system and retain its own laws and a high degree of autonomy for 50 years. These policies are codified in the Basic Law[2] that came into effect on 1 July 1997. As of that moment Hong Kong would be called a Special Administrative Region of the PRC. The Basic Law is a kind of mini-constitution of Hong Kong, on which all legislation of Hong Kong is based.

(In)dependent jurisdiction

IPR has been dominated by the territoriality principle[3]. This means that the territorial scope of any IP law of a jurisdiction shall be limited to the border of that jurisdiction.