Glodok Gets US Trade Rep’s ‘Notorious Market’ Moniker

Dubious Distinction: Jakarta electronics emporium causing US ‘significant losses’

Jakarta Globe, Victoria Slind-Flor, Mar 08, 2015

Harco Glodok market in Jakarta, Indonesia’s largest trade center for consumer
electronics and related goods. ( JG Photo/ Yudhi Sukma Wijaya)

The US Trade Representative’s office released its latest list of so-called notorious markets, identifying sites that cause “significant financial losses” for US companies to piracy and other forms of intellectual property infringement.

The 2014 survey identified physical marketplaces in 10 countries where significant amounts of counterfeit goods are sold. The markets are in Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil, China, Ecuador, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Paraguay, Thailand and Uruguay.

Particular areas of concern are Harco Glodok market in Jakarta, listed as Indonesia’s largest trade center for consumer electronics and related goods; Argentina’s La Salada, which the report identified as South America’s largest black market; the Silk Market in Beijing, where vendors reportedly have access “to a supply of newly manufactured counterfeit products to replace those that have been confiscated”; and the Computer Village Market in Lagos, Nigeria, reportedly the largest market for knockoff computer products and accessories in the nation.

China is the source of many of the counterfeit goods sold in markets in Prado, Italy; Lagos; Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, and Bangkok, according to the report.

The report lists a number of websites where enforcement activities have cut down on the quantity of counterfeit goods sold, including Seriesyonkis.com, Aiseesoft.com, Xunlei.com, and wawa-mania.ec, Mp3skull.com and Share-rapid.cz.

In other intellectual property and copyright news:

Rocketman

A challenge by Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies to a patent on which Jeff Bezos is the lead inventor received a positive ruling from the US Patent and Trademark Office.

At issue is a patent that covers the sea landing of space launch vehicles and is aimed at re-using rocket elements, instead of discarding them during flight as is usually done. Re-using launch vehicles would make space travel cheaper.

According to the patent, a structure would be positioned in a body of water and the launch vehicle returning to Earth would land tail-first on it.

The patent was issued to Blue Origin of Kent, Washington, a company established by Bezos, the chairman of Amazon.

In a March 3 decision, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board said that Musk’s Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX demonstrated a reasonable likelihood that it would prevail in showing the unpatentability of one of the patent claims.

The board agreed with SpaceX that some of the claims in the patent under review had been anticipated by and were obvious in the light of a technical paper, “Re-entry and Terminal Guidance for Vertical Landing TSTO (Two-Stage to Orbit),” presented at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1998.

The application for the disputed patent was filed in June 2010.

The board ruled that a procedure known as an inter parties review could be conducted over this patent.

UK blogger vindicated in his contention that someone is wrong on the Internet

A UK blogger who was the subject of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act claim after he posted a press release sent to him by an organization advocating heterosexual rights won a default judgment in a California federal court.

Oliver Hotham, identified in court papers as a student journalist and blogger, publishes a blog on the WordPress.com website operated by San Francisco’s Automattic [sic].

After reading a news account of Straight Pride UK, he contacted the organization, identifying himself as a student and freelance journalist, and asked for information about the organization, according to his pleadings.

The organization sent him a press release, which Hotham published in part on his blog. That same day, the self-described press officer for Straight Pride sent takedown notices to Hotham and Automattic, claiming copyright infringement.

Hotham sued in federal court in Oakland, California, in November 2013, accusing the press officer of misrepresentation of copyright.

In her March 2 order, US District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton granted a default judgment and awarded damages, including attorney fees, of $25,084.

She said Hotham and Automattic have been unsuccessfully attempting to locate the press officer, Nick Steiner, in order to serve the recommendations of a federal magistrate judge with respect to the default judgment. She said the court would require no further expenditure of resources.

The report from US Magistrate Judge Joseph Sero was filed Oct. 6. He recommended that Steiner be found to have made material misrepresentations in filing a DMCA infringement complaint.

All your assets are belong to us, Kim

Kim Dotcom and his co-defendants in a criminal copyright case have no standing to contest the forfeiture of their assets, a federal court in Virginia ruled.

Dotcom is in New Zealand, fighting attempts to have him extradited to the US to face the charges. The case is related to websites the government claims facilitated unauthorized file- sharing.

US District Judge Liam O’Grady ruled Feb. 27 that because Dotcom and other co-defendants are fugitives, they can’t contest the forfeiture.

He said the government successfully invoked a US law that bars such actions. The law, he said, was enacted to prevent the “unseemly” spectacle of a fugitive criminal defendant who is facing both incarceration and forfeiture from attempting to invoke “from a safe distance only so much of a US court’s jurisdiction” to recover alleged criminal proceeds.

According to court papers, the government is seeking the forfeiture of 18 bank accounts in Hong Kong and New Zealand; Dotcom’s assets in Computershare Investor Services; two luxury homes in Auckland; 21 cars, including Mercedes Benzes and Cadillacs; a Dutch Angel motorcycle; four personal watercraft; a 108-inch television; three 82-inch TVs; a Devon watch valued at $27,000; and a photo by Olaf Mueller.

Bloomberg