Arab News: Too much of a good thing can be a detriment to effective intellectual property enforcement it seems. Galal Fakkar's recent article, Intellectual property rights violations affecting Saudi economy, says expert, highlights this unexpected side effect of too many cooks stirring up the IPR soup. He writes from Jeddah:

The excessive number of organizations allowed to rule on issues concerning intellectual property rights in the Kingdom has weakened the application of laws and regulations concerning it, a legal expert has claimed.

“The aggression against the intellectual property rights cost the Saudi economy billions of riyals every year,” [Majed Garoub] said.

Even for an oil-rich region, this economic drain is taxing more limited financial resources and is due, in part, to the large number of cases being prosecuted on IP right infractions by various fractious agencies. Garoub: "'There are more than 100,000 cases of intellectual property rights now being investigated by all these bodies. This has prolonged the litigation period and made it difficult to follow up the cases,'" and is, in effect, hampering efforts to show the benefits of a strong IP legal system. To find out more about Saudi efforts to reform its burgeoning IP programs, check out Fakkar's entire piece at the link above.

CIELA - China IP Litigation Analysis: CIELA is a fantastic resource for those interested in the current state-of-affairs in Chinese intellectual property litigations. Here's the premise behind this excellent tool:

CIELA is an analytical tool for IP judgments from China's courts. CIELA compiles key data points from more than 7,600 published IP final judgments and settlements since 2006 into a searchable online database.

Users can obtain statistics on IPR rulings from the whole of China or focus on specific courts. From the data available, CIELA can, for example, show which courts award higher damages, have relatively more experience in certain types of cases, or conclude cases more quickly.

Along with a very thorough glossary of related terms and a concise and well-focused FAQ, CIELA's international team of IP experts make the site a go-to resource for researching China's IP court cases. And given that IP rights can be valued in the millions of dollars for a market-dominating patent, the rates CIELA charges for research are quite reasonable. "A basic statistical report (with charts) giving more details of particular cases or courts may cost approximately USD 500.  A report with statistics on particular cases or courts, with commentary from a qualified practitioner or with copies of reference judgments may cost approximately USD 1,000-2,000."

Sköne Oke: The United Kingdom has submitted a dissenting opinion on the secretive methods surrounding the contentious ACTA legislation. Here is the key passage from the Working Party of Information:

More broadly with respect to ACTA the UK considers that transparency is crucial to ensure the legitimacy of the agreement and to stop the spread of rumors. We believe that the lack of transparency is unhelpful and do not believe that it is in the public interest.

"Pip, pip, cheerio!" and all that: At least one of the potential signatories to ACTA is showing some backbone, nu? Read the remainder of the Council draft document in arebentisch's And the draft of the ACTA reply to me in English.

The AM Law Litigation Daily: Andrew Longstreth reports on a recent ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that might complicate things for future patent scuffles: 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled Tuesday in favor of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which claimed that the drug company Xenon breached their agreement to share licensing fees for a patent covering a cholesterol-lowering enzyme. The 28-page ruling affirms the district court's award of $300,000 to WARF. But the bigger story is the Seventh Circuit's finding that the contract between WARF and Xenon trumped Xenon's patent law rights.

...Xenon's Sidley Austin attorneys had tried to invoke the law of concurrent patent ownership, which generally holds that joint patent owners don't have to share licensing revenue. But both the district court and the Seventh Circuit found that the rule doesn't apply when the parties have reached an agreement to the contrary. Even if that agreement does not explicitly revoke the law of concurrent patent ownership, the Seventh Circuit concluded, the contract holds.

Longstreth's In Affirming Claim Against Xenon in Licensing Fee Dispute, Seventh Circuit Says Contracts Trump IP Rights should provide the additional necessary details to satisfy the curiosity of the gentle, and inquisitive, IP reader.

IPwatchdog: The ever helpful Gene Quinn has a new post that aspires to fix the busted USPTO pendency problem wide open. From Quinn's Offering Help: A Solution for Addressing the Patent Backlog, we learn of his suggestions to clean up the USPTO's act for them. He writes:

By spending any time on Bilski the Patent Office is just wasting time, and will have to eventually double back and redo all that work.  So rather than putting precious resources into action and bringing them to bear on settled areas of invention massive amounts of examiner hours will be spent dealing with an area that will change substantially within 6 months.  Imagine what would happen if the Patent Office devoted those resources to other applications, cleared out backlogs in other areas and then the Supreme Court issues its decision that says everything is patentable or nothing is patentable.  In either scenario the Patent Office could quickly plow through the applications, either issuing or denying once and for all.  Following this course in 2010 could result in a massive decrease in the backlog by the end of the fiscal year.

Indeed, the in Bilski ruling that is coming down the pipeline from SCOTUS will cause the Patent Office and Kappos cadets plenty of busy work while they wait to undo what is done once the SCOTUS decision reverses Bilski. Inefficiency in action, or just business as usual.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: Cleveland BioLabs Receives First U.S. Patent for Radiation Protection Drug CBLB502 at CNN Money.