International Law

Australia's mobile phone mania

Posted on March 27, 2008
...[I]n 2007, 9.64 million mobile devices were shipped to Australia and 3.55 million of these shipped in Q4, the highest quarter on record reports IDC’s Quarterly Mobile Phone (http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAU21155708) Tracker on 25 March 2008...

Lawyers who get social media

Posted on March 26, 2008
Every business has a brand, some have several. All businesses need customers for their brands because the dominant purpose of business is to make money. To reach those customers they need exposure. Simple really... except things constantly change. Take the business of Unilever Australia Limited (http://www...

Why is social media such a hit?

Posted on March 17, 2008
Today I want to join the dots between a few posts last week. I also want to put out a theory which may, at least partly, explain why social media sites are hits especially with teenagers. They include sites such as Facebook (ip/does-your-business-have-an-effective-digital-media-footprint-3...

Learning from Xerox's trademark makeover

Posted on March 13, 2008
PRESS RELEASE: Here at Xerox Corporation we've got a problem and we think we can fix it in 2008 with a brand makeover. Customers are being drawn to Canon, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba. Don't even mention Nokia or Apple! We have said goodbye to our almost 50 year old logo...

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Bebo founders and VC backers sing Be-bop-a-lula

Posted on March 13, 2008
Michael and Xochi Birch made an estimated US$600 million (£295 million) yesterday after the sale of their 70% stake in Bebo, the social networking site, to the AOL division of Time Warner for US$850 million (A$898 million) in cash. ... News Corporation, the parent company of The Times, acquired MySpace for US$580 million in 2005, when it had slightly more than 25 million monthly users...

Contract Drafting Tips Series: Restraint of Trade Clause

Posted on March 12, 2008
A restraint of trade clause seeks to restrict the freedom of a person to trade or deal in specified ways with assets, information or third parties. It can apply during a contractual relationship and also for a period after its termination or expiry. This article is part of our series on drafting tips for contract clauses...

Commercialisation of IP and IT products for Australian children: trends and statistics

Posted on March 11, 2008
The habits of teenagers often stay with them for life. Music was one of my addictions as a teenager. It inspired me to write Music formats and law: commercialisation of 45-rpm records (content/view/196/36/). A recently released Australian Government survey contains good statistics on the habits of young people today and their use of digital media...

Does your business have an effective digital media footprint?

Posted on March 11, 2008
What does it take today to create or improve your corporate or business digital footprint? Is reaching business elites (http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/americas-business-elite-voracious-consumers-of-all-media-1842/?camp=newsletter src=mc type=textlink) part of your target? As a solicitor working with content for 25 years and with digital media since 1983 I've learned a thing or two about digital media law as well as creative and commercial considerations...

Is there an engineer in the house? Australia's IP future.

Posted on March 10, 2008
When I go to a party alone and the host finds out I'm a lawyer I often hear: Oh, so and so over there is a lawyer, let me introduce you to her. My fantasy is to reply with this: Thank you. But is there an engineer in the house? You see, the work of engineers inspires me...

IP strategy for R&D: keep records like Thomas Edison

Posted on March 09, 2008
Making money from R D and intellectual property is based on documents. I learned this in 1983 on the first day of my first job as Legal Officer for Angus Robertson Publishers, Australia's oldest book publisher. A colleague pointed to three tall and very heavy fire-proof filing cabinets in a hallway...

Celebrating 200 Lightbulb Australian law blog posts

Posted on March 08, 2008
Here's a brisk jaunt through the last 100 Lightbulb posts. Lightbulb is our firm's blog on intellectual property law, commercialisation and related business law. The focus is on Australian law and circumstances. It now contains well over 200 substantive posts...

Six good questions for building wealth with intellectual property

Posted on March 07, 2008
Venture capital looks for great intellectual property (IP). So do many providers of seed capital, including angel investors like friends and family. A single IP asset or right is rarely a silver bullet, be it a patent, a trade mark, a specific trade secret or some other IP...

My shirt lacks legal design or how to beat parallel importation and avoid carpetbagger IP advice

Posted on March 06, 2008
It's casual Friday and I'm wearing a blue pinstripe white Ralph Polo business shirt. It has a blue embroidered polo player logo. A relative bought it for me in the United States. She bought it as an out of season design from an outlet store in California, probably for a price far cheaper than anywhere in Sydney...

Australia's common law near abroad

Posted on March 04, 2008
Twelve months ago I asked a friend, a visiting barrister from London, a question. I asked: Do the courts in England sometimes quote Australian judgements? He replied: England has judges whose legal minds can be extraordinary; and there are so many of them...

Special Collection: Retailing Law

Posted on March 03, 2008
This is a special collection of our posts and articles on law for retailing. They are useful for readers with businesses, whether or not they are retailers. Retailing involves marketing, one of the most regulated business functions. It is not surprising then that there are abundant legal stories about retailing...

Law with graphics and software

Posted on March 03, 2008
In the age of the internet and other computer networks, the lack of graphics to simplify law, let alone public software tools, remains remarkable. The legal sector's fixation on text alone, leads to data smog, information obesity, and information overload...

Index for Lightbulb by date

Posted on February 24, 2008
This is an index of Lightbulb posts by date order. Use it to search the 200+ posts since August 2006. To search instead by service area go to Index for Lightbulb by service area (content/view/141/36/). To search more specific topics, go to the Special Collections (commercialisation-knowledge-management/categorised-by-special-colle...

Successful partner visas overcome the 12 month rule

Posted on February 24, 2008
Partner visa applications take up about 25% of Australia's migration intake. There are two types. Firstly, Spouse Visas (for married or de-facto heterosexual couples). Secondly, Interdependency Visas (mainly for gay or lesbian couples). To apply for a Spouse Visa for a married couple, the marriage has to be recognized under Australian law...

DVD format war ends, Sony Blu-ray wins

Posted on February 20, 2008
Toshiba on Tuesday surrendered in the high-definition format war against Sony-backed Blu-ray, saying it would no longer make or market HD DVD players and recorders. The announcement came four days after Wal-Mart Stores, the world's largest retailer, said it would stop selling HD DVD movies and players (http://www...

Domain hijacking

Posted on February 19, 2008
Safeguarding your domain name and related intellectual property should be a high priority for your business. Unscrupulous opportunists troll the internet looking for businesses, both well known and not, checking for unregistered misspellings, similar domain names, or expired registrations...

Six permanent residency rules for couples or partners

Posted on February 18, 2008
In the year ending June 2007, Australia granted permanent residency to 161,000 migration applicants. About 25% of them came in as partners of Australians. These include de-facto, gay and lesbian partners. 1. At what time can a partner visa be lodged? A partner can be either overseas or in Australia at the time of lodging a migration application with the Immigration Department...

Australia's first 11 in performance and valuation

Posted on February 12, 2008
Every day people examine news, sharemarket performance and other factors looking for signs and explanations for shifts in valuations for companies, businesses and assets. Their search leads to mountains of books, articles and electronic data feeds...

Medical conditions don't rule out visa applications

Posted on February 11, 2008
Did you know that gay and lesbian applicants can successfully obtain an interdependent (partner) migration visa even when they have a serious health condition? They can seek what is known as the health waiver. This means that as long as health costs are not excessive, they can obtain the visa...

Intellectual property defined

Posted on February 06, 2008
This post continues the Lightbulb series on terminology. Intellectual property is a legal term. Intellectual property law is a loose category, with variations country by country. It includes copyright, confidential information, trade marks (registered and unregistered), patents and registered designs...

Want a work visa for Australia?

Posted on February 05, 2008
Clients often come into my office and make a simple request: I want to apply for a work visa. The reality is that strictly speaking a substantial number of visas are not granted because of work reasons. Instead, they may have a right to work attached...

Cue > Jan 2008 > Articles on business structuring, law and IP

Posted on January 31, 2008
This is the January 2008 issue of Cue, the Dilanchian email newsletter. Cue is a monthly selected list of our Library (general-items/library.html) articles and Lighbulb (lightbulb-dilanchian-ip-blog-/index.php) blog posts on IP and business law. You can freely subscribe to Cue (component/option,com_contact/task,view/contact_id,3/) or our full RSS feed (rd-rss/index...

"New England Australia" is now a geographic indicator for wine

Posted on January 29, 2008
New England Australia was registered in January 2008, joining about 60 other Australian wine regions recognised under law by Australia's Geographical Indications Committee. The name is now protected under Australian wine law. There are at least four practical consequence for wine producers of New England.

Gay and lesbian visa applications for Australia

Posted on January 24, 2008
Did you know that gay or lesbian partners of Australian permanent residents or citizens can apply for permanent residence of Australia? The visa to apply for is called an interdependency visa. The visa is similar to the spouse visa (de-facto grounds) applicable to heterosexual couples...

Special Collection: Business Structuring

Posted on January 17, 2008
Business structuring or reorganisation today requires classical and contemporary areas of expertise. Classical legal and accounting work is needed to set arrangements for taxation, the rights and shares of owners and the ownership of various types of assets...

Facts are critical for success in war and law

Posted on January 15, 2008
Gerard Chaliand, an international guerrilla warfare expert and friend, describes war as involving a combination of strategy, tactics and instinct. These ingredients are also necessary in legal work, especially for litigation and the resolution of disputes...

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