Refusals to Deal with Competitors by Owners of Patents and Copyrights: Reflections on the Image Technical and Xerox Decisions

The Colour of Copyright

Recalibrating the Disgorgement Remedy in Intellectual Property Cases

Natural Monopolies in Antitrust, Patent, and Copyright Law: The Essential Facilities, Reverse Doctrine of Equivalents, and Originality Doctrines as Triggers for a Compulsory Licensing Remedy

Recovering Fair Use

Open innovation (OI) is high on the commercial and political agenda. It revolves around R&D partnerships, set up to keep up with rapid technological developments. In negotiating such R&D partnerships, the allocation of intellectual property (IP) ownership, in particular patent ownership and trade secret control, is a difficult task. The lack of harmonization of IP law leads to challenges both for collaborating parties and third parties. Many legal patent systems, for instance, impose co-ownership as a default regime for jointly developed technologies. However, under such a regime the exploitation rights may significantly vary and may prescribe the consent of other owners in the case of use, licensing and sale of co-owned patents. These consent requirements may harm the interests of collaborating parties and complicate future exploitation of the technology concerned. To avoid this complexity, parties can establish their own applicable rules. The allocation of trade secret control, on the other hand, is only done on a contractual basis, as legislators do not foresee any default rules on the matter. Typically, the confidential nature of contracts will preclude third parties from obtaining information needed as a basis for initiating an OI process, such as licensing. Neither the default regime, nor the contract-based regime provides the necessary level of transparency and legal certainty to secure the smooth exploitation of jointly developed patents and trade secrets and future engagement in OI for both collaborating parties and third parties. The present paper examines the current IP framework for coupled OI processes in great depth. In addition, this paper reviews recent legislative initiatives to improve legal certainty and transparency, both at the national and EU level, and lists a number of potential legislative measures that could be imposed to further strengthen the legislative framework.

Trademark and Copyright Enforcement in the Shadow of IP Law

The ubiquitous use of additive manufacturing (and subtractive manufacturing), better known as “3D Printing” has forced intellectual property (IP) owners to re-evaluate the various types of well-known IP protections available to them, namely, patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets. In one aspect, by shifting the act of “manufacturing” or “making” of a product from a conventional industrial manufacturer to a consumer, the IP holder must determine which, if any, of the traditional IP protections are worth the investment. Acts which have been the signature of infringement, both patent and copyright, have been the making, using and selling of an IP protected product. But if the entity that is doing any of those acts by printing an IP-protected product is a consumer, the IP owner may not be able to recover any significant damages from that single consumer or consumers who actually print (i.e., “make”) the product. IP owners must look to see if there are any remedy(ies) in suing the vendors who sell the software files provided to the consumer that are loaded into their 3D printers. From a trademark aspect, where a trademark identifies the source of goods or services in commerce, IP owners need to be concerned about those they license to 3D-print their products; for example, will the end product have the same quality as when the IP owner actually produced the product, since the IP owner's trademark will appear on that printed product? With regard to copyrights, IP owners need to consider that although photographs have copyright the moment they are created, does software of optically scanned 3D objects have the same benefit?This paper will survey the impact of 3D Printing on copyright and trademark issues and how such IP protections can be, or not be, enforceable to provide value to an IP owner.


 
 
 
 Proponents of the free culture movement argue that contemporary, “over-zealous” copyright laws have an adverse affect on the freedoms of consumers and creators to make use of copyrighted materials. Lessig, McLeod, Vaidhyanathan, Demers, and Coombe, to name but a few, detail instances where creativity and consumer use have been hindered by copyright laws. The “intellectual land-grab” (Boyle, “Politics” 94), instigated by the increasing value of intangibles in the information age, has forced copyright owners to seek maximal protection for copyrighted materials. A propertarian approach seeks to imbue copyrighted materials with the same inalienable rights as real property, yet copyright is not a property right, because “the copyright owner … holds no ordinary chattel” (Dowling v. United States 473 US 207, 216 [1985]). A fundamental difference resides in the exclusivity of use: “If you eat my apple, then I cannot” but “if you “take” my idea, I still have it. If I tell you an idea, you have not deprived me of it. An unavoidable feature of intellectual property is that its consumption is non-rivalrous” (Lessig, Code 131). It is, as James Boyle notes, “different” to real property (Shamans 174). Vaidhyanathan observes, “copyright in the American tradition was not meant to be a “property right” as the public generally understands property. It was originally a narrow federal policy that granted a limited trade monopoly in exchange for universal use and access” (11). This paper explores the ways in which “property talk” has infiltrated copyright discourse and endangered the utility of the law in fostering free and diverse forms of creative expression. The possessiveness and exclusion that accompany “property talk” are difficult to reconcile with the utilitarian foundations of copyright. Transformative uses of copyrighted materials such as mashing, sampling and appropriative art are incompatible with a propertarian approach, subjecting freedom of creativity to arbitary licensing fees that often extend beyond the budget of creators (Collins). “Property talk” risks making transformative works an elitist form of creativity, available only to those with the financial resources necessary to meet the demands for licences. 
 
 There is a wealth of decisions throughout American and English case law that sustain Vaidhyanathan’s argument (see for example, Donaldson v. Becket 17 Cobbett Parliamentary History, col. 953; Wheaton v. Peters 33 US 591 [1834]; Fox Film Corporation v. Doyal 286 US 123 [1932]; US v. Paramount Pictures 334 US 131 [1948]; Mazer v. Stein 347 US 201, 219 [1954]; Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aitken 422 U.S. 151 [1975]; Aronson v. Quick Point Pencil Co. 440 US 257 [1979]; Dowling v. United States 473 US 207 [1985]; Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises 471 U.S. 539 [1985]; Luther R. Campbell a.k.a. Luke Skyywalker, et al. v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. 510 U.S 569 [1994].). As Lemley states, however, “Congress, the courts and commentators increasingly treat intellectual property as simply a species of real property rather than as a unique form of legal protection designed to deal with public goods problems” (1-2). Although section 106 of the Copyright Act 1976 grants exclusive rights, sections 107 to 112 provide freedoms beyond the control of the copyright owner, undermining the exclusivity of s.106. Australian law similarly grants exceptions to the exclusive rights granted in section 31. Exclusivity was a principal objective of the eighteenth century Stationers’ argument for a literary property right. Sir William Blackstone, largely responsible for many Anglo-American concepts concerning the construction of property law, defined property in absolutist terms as “that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the whole universe” (2). On the topic of reprints he staunchly argued an author “has clearly a right to dispose of that identical work as he pleases, and any attempt to take it from him, or vary the disposition he has made of it, is an invasion of his right of property” (405-6). Blackstonian copyright advanced an exclusive and perpetual property right. Blackstone’s interpretation of Lockean property theory argued for a copyright that extended beyond the author’s expression and encompassed the very “style” and “sentiments” held therein. (Tonson v. Collins [1760] 96 ER 189.) According to Locke, 
 
 every Man has a Property in his own Person . . . The Labour of his Body and the Work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property. (287-8)
 
 
 
 Blackstone’s inventive interpretation of Locke “analogised ideas, thoughts, and opinions with tangible objects to which title may be taken by occupancy under English common law” (Travis 783). Locke’s labour theory, however, is not easily applied to intangibles because occupancy or use is non-rivalrous. The appropriate extent of an author’s proprietary right in a work led Locke himself to a philosophical impasse (Bowrey 324). Although Blackstonian copyright was suppressed by the House of Lords in the eighteenth century (Donaldson v. Becket [1774] 17 Cobbett Parliamentary History, col. 953) and by the Supreme Court sixty years later (Wheaton v. Peters 33 US 591 [1834]), it has never wholly vacated copyright discourse. “Property talk” is undesirable in copyright discourse because it implicates totalitarian notions such as exclusion and inalienable private rights of ownership with no room for freedom of creativity or to use copyrighted materials for non-piracy related purposes.
 
 The notion that intellectual property is a species of property akin with real property is circulated by media companies seeking greater control over copyrighted materials, but the extent to which “property talk” has been adopted by the courts and scholars is troubling. Lemley (3-5) and Bell speculate whether the term “intellectual property” carries any responsibility for the propertisation of intangibles. A survey of federal court decisions between 1943 and 2003 reveals an exponential increase in the usage of the term. As noted by Samuelson (398) and Cohen (379), within the spheres of industry, culture, law, and politics the word “property” implies a broader scope of rights than those associated with a grant of limited monopoly. 
 
 Music United claims “unauthorized reproduction and distribution of copyrighted music is JUST AS ILLEGAL AS SHOPLIFTING A CD”. James Brown argues sampling from his records is tantamount to theft: “Anything they take off my record is mine . . . Can I take a button off your shirt and put it on mine? Can I take a toenail off your foot – is that all right with you?” (Miller 1). Equating unauthorised copying with theft seeks to socially demonise activities occurring outside of the permission culture currently being fostered by inventive interpretations of the law. Increasing propagation of copyright as the personal property of the creator and/or copyright owner is instrumental in efforts to secure further legislative or judicial protection:
 
 Since 1909, courts and corporations have exploited public concern for rewarding established authors by steadily limiting the rights of readers, consumers, and emerging artists. All along, the author was deployed as a straw man in the debate. The unrewarded authorial genius was used as a rhetorical distraction that appealed to the American romantic individualism. (Vaidhyanathan 11)
 
 
 The “unrewarded authorial genius” was certainly tactically deployed in the eighteenth century in order to generate sympathy in pleas for further protection (Feather 71). Supporting the RIAA, artists including Britney Spears ask “Would you go into a CD store and steal a CD? It’s the same thing – people going into the computers and logging on and stealing our music”. The presence of a notable celebrity claiming file-sharing is equivalent to stealing their personal property is a more publicly acceptable spin on the major labels’ attempts to maintain a monopoly over music distribution. 
 
 In 1997, Congress enacted the No Electronic Theft Act which extended copyright protection into the digital realm and introduced stricter penalties for electronic reproduction. The use of “theft” in the title clearly aligns the statute with a propertarian portrayal of intangibles. Most movie fans will have witnessed anti-piracy propaganda in the cinema and on DVDs. Analogies between stealing a bag and downloading movies blur fundamental distinctions in the rivalrous/non-rivalrous nature of tangibles and intangibles (Lessig Code, 131). Of critical significance is the infiltration of “property talk” into the courtrooms. In 1990 Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote:
 
 Patents give a right to exclude, just as the law of trespass does with real property … Old rhetoric about intellectual property equating to monopoly seemed to have vanished, replaced by a recognition that a right to exclude in intellectual property is no different in principle from the right to exclude in physical property … Except in the rarest case, we should treat intellectual and physical property identically in the law – which is where the broader currents are taking us. (109, 112, 118)
 
 
 Although Easterbrook refers to patents, his endorsement of “property talk” is cause for concern given the similarity with which patents and copyrights have been historically treated (Ou 41). In Grand Upright v. Warner Bros. Judge Kevin Duffy commenced his judgment with the admonishment “Thou shalt not steal”. Similarly, in Ja

There is a question mark in the title of this article because more questions than answers have been encountered in researching the topic. The relative certainty with which owners of furniture, equipment, accounts and most other personal property can obtain credit by granting a security in their property rapidly dissipates when the property in question is intellectual property. Owners of patents and other intellectual property find barriers to obtaining secured credit that are not faced by other property owners because there is a historical gap between the federal law protecting rights of intellectual property owners and state laws addressing secured transactions. The increasing importance of intellectual property to the economy of the United States (patent filings having increased by seventy percent since 19962 raises the visibility of this gap and urges consideration of changes in law. This would permit owners of intellectual property access to the same financing opportunities that are available to owners of other personal property. There seems to be no public policy that justifies the current situation.

“They’re creepy and they’re kooky” and They’re Copyrighted: How Copyright Is Used to Dampen the (Re-)Imagination

Intellectual Property's First Sale Doctrine and the Policy Against Restraints on Alienation

In Capitol Records, L.L.C. v. Vimeo, L.L.C., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the “safe harbor” provisions of Section 512 of the federal Copyright Act covered state law claims against an online service provider for infringement of pre-1972 sound recordings.1 The evidentiary basis for this conclusion was slender. At the heart of the decision was the court’s surmise that Congress must have intended to cover state law “copyright,” because a contrary interpretation would undermine the policy objectives of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In reaching its decision, the court apparently misread the Copyright Act and misunderstood both the nature of state law protection for pre-1972 sound recordings and the trade-offs that underlay the DMCA. We submit that this holding of Vimeo should not be followed by courts in other circuits, however sympathetic its policy underpinnings may be.2 It is doubtful that Congress considered state law “copyright” claims in passing the DMCA, or that it meant to include them under § 512. As a policy matter, it probably should have done so. But had it done so, Congress almost certainly would have said so explicitly, and would have altered other provisions of the DMCA to achieve a fairer result for owners of rights in pre-1972 sound recordings than the Second Circuit did. Congress could, for example, have protected pre-1972 sound recordings under § 1201 et seq., or otherwise provided those recordings with greater protection under the Copyright Act.3 The court’s focus on only one policy objective of the DMCA led it to interpret the Copyright Act in an implausible manner that benefits online service providers (OSPs), at the expense of owners of pre-1972 sound recordings, and the unique position of those recordings under copyright law. The central issues in this case that concern pre-1972 sound recordings are more appropriately under Congressional purview, as the Second Circuit should have recognized. And indeed, Congress should act to resolve these issues, particularly now, in view of the conflicting treatment of state law claims between Vimeo (concerning the safe harbor in § 512 of the Copyright Act)4 and the Ninth Circuit’s sweeping conclusion in Perfect 10, Inc. v. CCBill, L.L.C.5 that state law intellectual property claims are barred by § 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA).6 Accordingly, we recommend legislation to address this issue and to resolve other problems and inconsistencies that have arisen due to the peculiar situation of pre-1972 sound recordings and federal copyright law, as discussed below. In Part I, we discuss the legal status of pre-1972 sound recordings as necessary background to evaluating the Second Circuit’s decision in Vimeo. Part II discusses that decision in greater detail, and Part III explains the flaws in the court’s rationale. In Part IV, we address the Second and Ninth Circuits’ contradictory views concerning the treatment of state law claims against OSPs under § 512 of the Copyright Act and § 230 of the CDA. In Part V, we explain that it is up to Congress to change the role of pre-1972 sound recordings in the federal copyright scheme, and argue that the time is ripe for Congress to exercise that power. We conclude in Part VI.

When Is Property Intellectual? The Leveraging Problem

The Immigration Battle in American Courts. By Anna O. Law. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 266 pp. $90.00 cloth. In The Immigration Battle in American Courts, Anna O. Law uses immigration law as a case study to provide a compelling analysis of the different developmental paths of the two highest U.S. federal courtsFthe Courts of Appeals (the Third, Fifth, and Ninth Circuits) and the Supreme Court, for an impressive array of years: 1881 to 2002. Law, interested in institutional changes that occurred in these courts, utilizes a mixed-method analysis that yields three core arguments. First, the Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals operate in different institutional contexts; each court's unique context acts as a filtering mechanism that shapes the judges' perception of what they should be doing and how they should be doing it. Second, the contexts of both courts have slowly changed over time; as such, neither the Supreme Court nor the Courts of Appeals have played a static role in the federal judicial system. Third, the changing institutional settings of the courts have consequences for the courts themselves, for the occupants of those institutions, and in the case of immigration law, for the immigrants who appear before the courts. While the overarching theme of this study is institutional change, the book presents a strong and nuanced analysis of the institutional context for the creation of immigration law. Chapter 2 examines the immigration bureaucracy, from the Board of Immigration Appeals to the federal courts. Law analyzes the anti-immigrant reputation of the Supreme Court, arguing that it has gained this reputation largely because it has ceded power over immigration to Congress and the executive branch. Because the Supreme Court has the power to control its own docket, it is able to decide which immigration cases to review; at the same time, the Courts of Appeals must adjudicate all of the immigration cases that are appealed to them. The number of these cases, as Chapter 3 shows, has increased significantly, and, as Law convincingly argues, ''the confluence of congressional legislation first creating the structures and rules of the federal judicial system, the decision of immigrants to defend challenges to their immigration status, and the rise of immigration enforcement beginning in 1986 had the combined effect of further distancing and distinguishing the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeals in their functions'' (p. 83). Because the Supreme Court grants certiorari to so few cases, the Courts of Appeals have taken on the brunt of immigration cases. Law quantifies this: Between 1881 and 2002, the Supreme Court decided 200 immigration cases, whereas the 11 Courts of Appeals decided 12,371 immigration cases combined (pp. 114, 115). The fact that the Courts of Appeals are more likely to be the last decision making body to address immigration cases suggests, as Law shows in Chapter 4, that these judges' preferred interpretations of statutes will stand (p. …

In the last couple of months I have spent considerable time with police officials in India. I am worried, very worried about the conversations I have had with them which were largely centred around the state of the informal economy, in which Intellectual Property (IP) crime plays a huge part. The most unsettling linkage is the one between the proceeds of IP crimes and terrorist activities. A senior police officer with whom I have had extensive discussions on the subject acknowledged some recent reports that many terrorist organisations now source their funding through IP crimes. According to him the terrorist outfits or organised criminal networks do not operate in a vacuum but very much in the real world. They need an interface with real commerce in order to fund their nefarious activities. These organisations are becoming increasingly sophisticated and are beginning to control the majority of IP crimes that are taking place, particularly in developing countries. The officer claims that in his state alone (India has 28 states) rampant music piracy results in a massive loss to the economy. He estimates that the size of the informal music sector is at least 12 times the size of legitimate industry. He does not stop there and quotes many more examples from fake designer goods to more serious instances, such as counterfeit drugs, food products and adulterated petrol, which have major health and safety implications. This analysis of the situation in India also applies to other high-growth countries as well as some Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Most global surveys however frequently cite the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations as the worst IP offenders. The BRIC economies are playing a major role in global economic growth and weak IP regimes in these countries are a cause of major concern for companies that sell products into these markets. IP crimes do more damage to a nation than is apparent on the surface. This grand larceny has a huge impact on the nation’s economy and society as a whole, notwithstanding its role in fuelling crime generally. The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that approximately 10 per cent of all pharmaceutical drugs in the world are counterfeit, rising to 60 per cent in certain poor and developing nations. In India, consumer watchdogs point to thousands of cases of adulteration in the food and beverage industry. According to a report the daily sales of a particular brand of Scotch whisky are greater than its monthly worldwide sales. This is only possible if the real bottles have counterfeit liquor in them. As a result the empty bottles of this particular brand have a major resale value of 250 rupees each (approximately 4 US dollars). There are thousands of other cases that can be cited but the net result of each of them is a lose-lose situation for all stakeholders: The industry loses major revenue streams because of pirated and counterfeit goods. As a result the government also suffers major loss of tax revenues. The creators and owners of IP, which may be different entities from different nations, are not remunerated. The consumers get poor value for money or in other cases are cheated outright. Due to the overall lack of monies collected, the IP ecosystem does not develop effectively. The lack of an effective IP regime in a country is a major deterrent to any R&D or IP related investments coming into the country. In order to deal with IP crimes the stakeholders must first understand the subject matter in great depth. A textbook definition states that an unauthorised use of someone’s intellectual property that includes copyright, patent, trade mark or design constitutes an IP infringement. Most people think of music CDs and film DVDs when they think of IP related crimes. Sadly, this is largely the media’s doing, by providing more than their fair share of coverage to branded goods and products that supposedly evoke a greater public reaction. The less reported and more serious crimes are in the areas of food products, everyday consumer goods, automobile parts and manufactured goods. Ironically the media itself has also been the victim of IP infringement as there have been instances when even fake newspapers and journals have been in circulation. The global trends in IP crime will only make life more difficult for industry, law enforcement agencies and governments around the world. What was a very local industry has now gone universal with the help of technology and globalisation. The global organised criminal networks tend to have very strong capabilities for moving goods, people and money across borders. These groups typically deal in mass-produced goods such as CDs or drugs as the more bespoke goods/services are difficult to imitate and replicate. Within a country’s borders the criminal networks exploit four major weaknesses in any system. Firstly, they make use of an enforcement framework that is less than adequate. For instance, although the Indian government takes IP crimes very seriously, there is just not enough support in the form of resources available to police forces to create an effective front to counter these criminals. In a major metropolis such as Delhi there are fewer than a dozen officers dealing with all forms of white-collar crimes including IP crimes. What exacerbates the situation is the perception among officers at grass-roots level that IP crime is not a real crime ‘since it is victimless’. For most officers who are battling against other heinous crimes such as homicide, rape or terrorism, the IP related crimes go to the bottom of the pile. The second major problem is the capacity of the judicial system. Even though there is a major infraction of rules taking place, the judiciary is not equipped to deal with the cases on a speedy basis. In certain industries there are thousands of cases registered in various courts of India but due to a massive backlog they are just gathering dust. An affirmative ruling is a far cry as most cases have not even been heard by the courts. Another bottleneck is caused by a serious shortage of experienced lawyers in the country who are able to represent the victims. Those who have a thriving practice are in such high demand that they charge exorbitant rates which only the major corporations are able to afford and thus take access to quality legal advice outside the reach of the small and medium enterprise (SME) industry and the common person on the street. This makes the whole IP regime elitist and the entire exercise self-defeating. The third area is the huge intelligence chasm that exists between all the stakeholders. The industry rarely shares information with the key stakeholders as they fear brand erosion if the news leaks out in the media. The different industry bodies also rarely share information between themselves. It is astonishing that this is the situation since most criminal organisations will commit IP crimes cutting across many industries. Sharing of this intelligence with other industries would most certainly help in crime prevention. The enforcement agencies also suffer from a serious intelligence deficit. They rarely share information with other forces within the country or with global networks such as INTERPOL. The industry must also develop an internal intelligence gathering system. Many instances of IP crimes are due to leakages within the industry. For instance the surplus output from manufacturing outfits is sold and distributed in grey markets without the knowledge of the owners of the IP. Equally there is leakage in the enforcement system. The offenders get regular tip-offs from insiders that help them evade raids. There have been numerous complaints of fake raids that the agencies conduct to show to various stakeholders that much is being done to prevent IP crime. The fourth major weakness is poor knowledge and awareness of IP within the system. An interview with some police constables in India highlights this issue well. When asked what IP crime prevention meant, most constables thought that it involved mayors and other local government officials. According to their logic VVIP protection is applicable to the prime minister (and similar levels of office), VIP protection is applicable to ministers, therefore IP protection must apply to those lower in the government hierarchy. The senior officers, however, are mostly aware of the situation on the ground but are unable to change it due to poor resources. Firstly, there needs to be a much greater will within the system to eradicate this scourge. The three main stakeholder camps: (1) policy and legislation; (2) intelligence and enforcement; and (3) awareness are all cogs of a wheel that have to be perfectly in sync with each other and must be adapted to the unique situation in each country. No battle against IP crimes can be won without government’s proactive role in strengthening the legislation. Both policy makers and judiciary have to design a system that will not only be effective in containment but also act as a strong deterrent to any future crimes. This will primarily be achieved by heavy penalties and fines for crimes, swift and cost-effective judicial process, fast-track courts, improved industry standards and clear guidelines. Greater innovation is required in intelligence and enforcement. Although there is a willingness among the forces to eradicate this crime, they must realise that greater sharing of knowledge and pooling of resources is the only way forward. Additionally the industry cannot wash its hands of what is perceived as a sovereign function. It must contribute not only in resources but also in development of an effective crime prevention framework. Both technology (e.g. GPS tracking, radio frequency identification (RfID)) and processes (e.g. intelligence databases, evidence protection, continuous monitoring) will play a major role. Awareness has a huge role to play in making the stakeholders realise the damage that IP crimes inflict upon a nation. The industry is obviously very much aware as it suffers direct consequences. Consumers however have a tendency to believe that it is only the large multinationals that suffer from IP crime or they suffer from Robin Hood syndrome whereby they support the criminals for making available products that may not generally be within their purchasing power. Education must be imparted at all levels. Many countries are contemplating including IP related education in primary and secondary schools so that younger generations preserve and improve the IP framework. Consumers need to be educated equally by producing quality research that demonstrates the linkage between IP crime and loss of value. Policy makers and industry must contribute by making the judiciary and enforcement agencies aware that IP crimes are not victimless. The biggest victim is the nation as a whole. The most effective solutions in combating IP crimes will come from greater engagement by the private sector. The public private partnership (PPP) model offers much potential and must be explored further. Although the private sector cannot get involved in areas that are under the remit of the state such as law enforcement and the judiciary, it can certainly play a very strong supporting role through better intelligence gathering and creating advanced technology solutions that will provide a deterrent to the criminal outfits. There is a larger imperative, which is to cut all possible sources that fund terrorism and organised crime. If global policy makers do not take a cue from this growing trend, it will confront them in much more dangerous forms at a later date.