LES International Liaison

Contacts, Mission Statement and Activities

The function of the liaison is to interface with the appropriate LES International industry and professional committees on issues of interest in licensing transactions between North American and foreign nationals and companies, including IP rights acquisition and enforcement, licensing standards, and similar topics of interest to the international licensing community. These issues may include, for example:

• What companies outside the US need to know about US outbound licensing, e.g., US export control law.
• What US companies need to know about foreign inbound licensing, e.g., dispute resolution and enforcement of judgments, differing language even among English-speakers, differing cultural expectations.
• What frustrates everyone about international IP registration and rights management, e.g., length of time and cost to get patents in place, slow adoption of Madrid Protocol for TM registration, need for copyright registration in the USA, international issues in non-disclosure agreements.
• Patent and trademark marking as applied to goods sold internationally.
• Software issues, e.g., copyright registration requirements unique to the US, software patents, treatment of trade secrets, business process patents treated inconsistently, enforcement of all the above.
• Arbitrators and judges insufficiently trained in IP matters, and how the licensing industry can address this.
• Expansion of the Internet through new gTLDs and technical advances, leading to new possibilities for licensees and licensors, and new markets for technologies

The HTS Liaison will coordinate with the LES International committees to keep communications open on these and other initiatives, as well as with regard to potential speakers and workshops for each group.