IP Law in Asia

The project IP in Asia serves the need to understand the legal and regulatory environment in our immediate region, especially as it relates to IP. It focuses on the interrelationship between IP law, related regulation and the growing creator and consumer sectors in digital content in Asia, emphasising China and ASEAN.

Progress in 2010
During 2010, Antons published three articles. He finalised the editing of “The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: Comparative Perspectives from the Asia-Pacific Region”. This book is now in print and will be published by Kluwer in the Max Planck Series on Asian Intellectual Property Law. Four book chapters are also in print as part of this and other projects. Antons organised an international CCI workshop on “Recent Developments in Intellectual Property Law in Southeast Asia” with participants from nine countries in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute, Munich. He presented eleven papers at conferences/seminars in Australia (UOW, Swinburne, ANU), Thailand (Chiang Mai), Indonesia (Bali), Singapore (National University of Singapore), USA (Chicago) and Taiwan (Academia Sinica). He received a grant from the UOW Institute for Social Transformation Research for a project on “Towards a Treaty on Traditional Knowledge: Lessons from National Regulatory Models in Indonesia and the Philippines”.

Plans for 2011
During 2011, Antons will present papers at an international workshop on “International Trade in Indigenous Cultural Heritage: Legal and Policy Issues” at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland and at a seminar of the Center for Development Research at the University of Bonn, Germany. He will continue the editing of books currently under contract and in preparation for publication by Kluwer, Ashgate and Edward Elgar: “Intellectual Property Law in Southeast Asia”, “Law in East Asia: Socio-legal Issues” and “Intellectual Property Chapters in Free Trade Agreements in the Asia-Pacific Region”. He is invited to contribute to book projects edited at the Academia Sinica, Max Planck Institute Munich, National University of Singapore, University of Melbourne, Drake University and University of Lucerne. During the second half of 2011, Antons will organise an international IP workshop at UOW.

Impact
Antons’ book chapter on ‘Copyright Law Reform and the Information Society in Indonesia’ has been translated into Indonesian and will be published in Media HKI, an intellectual property journal edited at the Directorate General of Intellectual Property Rights in Indonesia. He was invited to contribute to a special Southeast Asia issue of Biodiversity and Conservation. He was an invited speaker at the 4th Conference on European and Asian Intellectual Property Rights in Taipei, the Australia-Netherlands Research Collaboration Workshop on “Indigenous peoples and natural resource management” in Seminyak (Bali) and at a Research Symposium on ‘The new law of brands & reputation in the Asia-Pacific Rim’ organised by the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, the Law Faculty of the National University of Singapore and the IP Academy Singapore.

New Knowledge Generated
Antons’ publications on traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions in Southeast Asia have pointed to complicated cross-border problems, if knowledge is linked to certain communities and geographical regions. The edited IP enforcement in Asia book, which is in print, brings a discussion of recent legislative and policy changes and their impact in practice. It also provides an outlook on the likely effects of most recent initiatives such as the plurilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).