Business & Legal Services

Introduction

The blockchain technology gained global notoriety when, at the end of 2017, the value of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin reached the value of $ 20,000. It is usually accepted that this technology arose in 2008 and was created by Satoshi Nakamoto, the fictitious name of a person or a group of people, being implemented in 2009 as a nuclear component of Bitcoin.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recently shared statistical data in regards to the companies that invested more in the protection of IP assets, during 2016, namely trademarks, PCTs, designs and domain name disputes. IP assets filing services experienced increases in the number of applications.

The South African National Treasury announced, on 22 February 2017, the intention to eliminate the current regimen’s restriction to the Intellectual Property assets’ transaction, by liberalizing the transactions in this area. These are good news for entrepreneurs and investors.

ARM Holdings, a Cambridge-based internet technology company that designs chips and holds the title as the UK’s only global-scale tech company and is also listed in the FTSE 100 has accepted a takeover offer by the Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank for $31.4 billion.

Following several months of uncertainty and speculation, the trans-Atlantic agreement between the European Union and the United States of America has been officially adopted on Tuesday the 12th of July, 2016.

Past April 20th, 2016 the Rwandan government has released an Official Gazette Special.

This important document, drafted in Kinyarwanda, French and English, makes effective recently promulgated laws and modifies various IP laws. The main changes are the following:

It is official, as from today, (27/05/16) José Mourinho is officially Manchester United’s new manager. An announcement such as this would normally call for a celebration for “sealing the deal”, but for the executives responsible for the transfer there is still unsettled issues that need to be pondered and addressed.

Founded in 2010 by the entrepreneur Lei Jun, Xiaomi is one of China’s largest mobile brands, just recently announced a licensing deal of around 1,500 patents from the software-giant Microsoft. Pundits suggest this move is an effort to expand from China into western markets.

The Department of Justice (USDOJ) in collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has sentenced a former DuPont employee for his participation in the theft and transfer of trade secrets.

The American chemical company DuPont is known for the development of Kevlar which is the registered trademark for a synthetic fibre which is widely used for industrial, technological and military purposes.

The Sixty-eighth session of the World Health Assembly (WHA) took place in Geneva 18–26 May 2015. One of the issues that have been addressed was the high prices of medicines in Europe. Actually this is a growing problem in the EU. In the past few years the price of the medicines have been increasing exceeding the ability of the patients to pay for it. It is enough to recall the recent case involving the drugs to treat hepatitis C (HCV) which have an unsustainable price when compared to previous generation treatments.