LEVIS, QUEBEC, Mar 13, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) —- DEQ Systems Corp. announced today that the Philippines Bureau of Patents has granted a patent for DEQ’s invention entitled “Method and system for controlling and managing bets in a gaming environment”.  This patent covers a method and system for playing live casino games remotely. For example, players standing in front of a fully occupied baccarat table wishing to participate in the game, can now do so using a remote console to place wagers on the games and even for upcoming games that would be protected by this patent. Another important feature of this approved patent is the ability to pre-program the device to automatically place wagers on a series of rounds on a game like baccarat with financial parameters such as win /loss limits or specific statistical parameters. This takes away the current physical limit of number of players per table. As well, players can even place their bets after the live game started for the upcoming game, which is not currently possible in a traditional table game setting.

“Live games are no longer limited to the number of seats at the table thus any table game such as baccarat tables can now be played by an infinite number of players,” said Marco Estrela, DEQ’s Chief Marketing Officer. “The patent strategy in the Pacific Rim countries follows the emerging gaming markets and the features covered in this remote betting patent aims to capitalize on the emerging trends.”

ABOUT DEQ

Founded in 1998, DEQ Systems Corp. (TSX VENTURE: DEQ | news | PowerRating | PR Charts ) is a leader in the table game bonusing technology field. DEQ’s patents, products and features include side bet bonusing games with progressive and random jackpot prizes, slot machine style mystery bonusing, multiple credit and denomination betting flexibility, dealer hand betting, electronic credit bank, electronic rake, baccarat hand tracking, multimedia animation and sound effects. DEQ has an extensive patent portfolio that is recognized in more than 50 countries such as the USA, Macau, Australia and Canada. DEQ’s bonusing solutions and products are present in more than 200 casinos in over 30 countries. For further information, please visit www.deq.com

DEQ Systems Corp. has been selected in the TSX Venture 50 in 2007. “2007 Venture 50″ is a trademark of TSX inc. and is used under license.

Forward-looking statements contained in this Press Release involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance and achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the said forward-looking statements.

TSX Venture does not accept any responsibility regarding the accuracy of the information contained in this press release.

Adapted from Tradingmarkets.com

Agence France-Presse      First Posted 21:54:00 02/28/2008

MANILA, Philippines — A trade group in the Philippines said Thursday it has asked the US Trade Representative to retain the country on its piracy watchlist amid rampant violations concerning intellectual property.

The Intellectual Property Coalition, the federation of Philippine trade associations that oversees piracy issues, said violations of intellectual property rights have continued despite government efforts to curb them.

While authorities have shown “consistent readiness and responsiveness” they have yet to show concrete results, the group said in a letter sent to the United States.

“The raids and seizures are not enough to deter piracy and counterfeiting,” the letter said.

The coalition said little has been done in the Philippines to establish an intellectual property unit at the customs bureau, the agency tasked to combat imported pirated materials.

Legislation was also needed to implement treaties covering piracy, it said.

While the bulk of pirated optical media found in the Philippines is imported from other Asian countries, the customs bureau’s intellectual property unit “remains the same small agency as it was last year and the year before,” the letter said.

The US Trade Representative in 2006, removed the Philippines from its so-called “Special 301″ citing improvements in intellectual property protection and placed it on the priority watchlist.

Adapted from Inquirer.net

By Erwin Oliva INQUIRER.net    First Posted 20:44:00 02/23/2008

MANILA, Philippines — The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has unveiled a website that hopes to promote cyber ethics, safety and wellness as part of a regional campaign.

The website, dubbed B4USurf targets educators, parents and the youth ages 10 to 18 years old.

BSA is an industry organization that has been promoting the protection of intellectual property rights worldwide. It has also been behind the enforcement of intellectual property rights of its members in the Philippines.

The website, for instance, provides online resources to parents on how they can teach their kids to “surf responsibly.” It also provides more information on how kids can protect themselves from cyber bullies and pornography.

For educators, the website shows teachers how they can incorporate cyber-ethics or cyber safety topics into their classroom lessons.

The BSA has also launched B4USurf in Singapore, China, Malaysia and Taiwan.

Tarun Sawney, BSA Director for Anti-Piracy for Asia, said that “greater Internet access” also means increasing risk of being exposed to “online dangers,” identifying piracy, cyber bullying, pornography, Internet game addiction, among others, as examples.

He also noted that these three target groups should be educated on Internet security issues, such as spam, spyware, computer viruses, Trojans, hacking, as well as Internet or computer crimes.

“We are committed to look for ways to make the online experience for students, parents and educators both productive and safe. We also look to government to play an increasingly active role in the education of the Internet in schools — as the present and future generations will immerse themselves in the digital age.” Sawney said.

Citing a local study, Sawney said that young Filipino users use the Internet primarily for research, social networking and gaming. He pointed out that children today are likely more knowledgeable of the latest trend in the Internet than their parents.

Sawney also suggested that as computers and the Internet are introduced in schools, schools should convey the risks associated with Internet to students.

“[It’s] not enough for children to learn how to use computers and access the Internet — they must also learn to use the technology safely and responsibly,” he added.

Supporting the website are the Intellectual Property Coalition, the Philippine Internet Services Organization, Chikka Asia, Bidshot Wireless Services, the Department of Science and Technology, and the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines.

Citing market research ACNielsen estimates, BSA said that the number of Internet users in the Philippines will reach 24 million in 2008.

Adapted from Inquirer.net

Monday February 18, 2008

A government forcing any company to give up its property, intellectual or otherwise, for whatever reason, is not good. It undermines the basis of our economic system when a politician can say, ‘’We want your product, but we can’t afford it, so we will just copy it.'’ When governments start doing that, they undermine both local and foreign investor confidence in our country. Foreign investment is one of the key drivers of our economy, and when the economy suffers, all 65 million Thais suffer. 2. Compulsory licensing (CL) ruins our reputation in the international community. When CL was announced, Thailand received some of its worst coverage ever, in important newspapers including the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, which ran headlines that presented our country as a ‘’thief'’.

Whether that is correct or not is one thing but what we cannot deny is that it did terrible damage to our country’s standing. When it was claimed that CL could help save the government money, we have to ask whether those savings are really worthwhile when we see how much it costs to create those savings.

How can we ever hope to be an innovation or R&D centre for health care if people are not 100% certain of the protection of their intellectual property in our country?

3. There is a likelihood that Thailand may lose some of its export benefits to the United States because of its track record on intellectual property protection. The CL actions of the last government may have contributed to that track record.

If we do lose export privileges to the United States, that will affect many industries and millions of workers in garments, shoe manufacturing and a host of other industries exporting to the United States. It will also affect many farmers and others working in the agricultural sector with exports to the United States.

Thailand exports 131.5 billion baht worth of goods to the United States under the special low-tariff Generalised System of Preferences programme. Last year, the government saved 15 million baht from CL for HIV/Aids drugs. Instead of putting the livelihoods of millions of people at risk, why doesn’t the government directly assist HIV/Aids patients by buying them the drugs that they need under the free health-care scheme.

4. Thai patients deserve better than getting copy medicines. Patients deserve original medicines and the government should ensure that its programmes give patients access to dependable, high-quality medicines.

5. Issuing CLs is a good publicity stunt. But it just makes us overlook the real solution to Thailand’s health-care issues. Copying a few medicines will not solve these problems but will create many other problems affecting many other people.

We need to allocate more budget to the Ministry of Public Health so that it can afford to buy quality medicines and help more people gain access to the world’s best medicines.

We allocate too small a proportion of our budget to health care.

Even countries in Africa, including Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sudan and Senegal, allocate a higher proportion of their GDP to health than Thailand’s meagre 3.3.%, according to the World Health Organisation.

We also have a chronic shortage of doctors. Countries such as Pakistan, Malaysia and Iraq have almost twice as many doctors as a proportion of their populations than Thailand. Algeria, Mexico and Ecuador have three times as many. Only countries such as Burma, Botswana and Tonga have a similar proportion of doctors to their populations as Thailand, at around only four per thousand people.

Teera Chakajnarodom is the president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers’ Association of Thailand.

Adapted from BangkokPost

The Cabinet will review the compulsory licensing (CL) approvals for key cancer drugs by the previous military-appointed government, but not immediately, said Public Health Minister Chaiya Sasomsap. 

He indicated that the government will likely reverse the decision to break the foreign patents, and would move instead to increase funding and make drugs available to patients are a low cost via subsidies.

Speaking on the concern regarding public access to medications, he said he believed that the ministry will receive a budget to help cancer patients because the number of cancer patients and the cost of the treatment was not overly high.

The review will not begin before next week. The government is scheduled to give its policy statement to Parliament next Monday, following which there is likely to be a parliamentary debate.

The minister said he will submit the issue to the Cabinet, saying the former commerce minister sent a letter to the Permanent Secretary for Public Health suggesting that the implementation of the CL should be considered by the new government.

He said the administration of the new government has to be team work as the decision of one ministry can tremendously affect another ministry.

Mr Chaiya said Thursday that he would review the action of his predecessor, Mongkol Na Songkhla, who served in the military-installed government when he approved the CL decisions to break the patents of four cancer drugs on January 4.

The four drugs concerned were the breast cancer drug letrozole produced by Novartis; the breast and lung cancer drug docetaxel made by Sanofi-Aventis, the leukaemia drug imatinib of Novartis, and the lung cancer drug erlotinib produced by Roche. (TNA)

Adapted from BangkokPost

Washington - A US-based industry group demanded the government focus more closely on intellectual property violations in Thailand. But the big surprise was the group’s new Big Three of world IP scofflaws: Russia, China - and Canada.

Eric Smith, president of the International Intellectual Property Alliance, urged that Thailand be placed on the “priority watch list” by the US Trade Representative, along with old-time pirates Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Egypt, India, Mexico, Peru, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine.

But then, for his second surprise, he asked for the addition of 10 other brand-new countries on the lower “watch list,” a move which would bring that list to 29: Spain, Greece, Sweden, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Brunei, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Kazakhstan.

The USTR releases its annual list at the end of April.

Later this week, Thailand is to submit evidence that officials hope will convince the United States that Thailand has improved its record on piracy.

Puangrat Aswapisit told reporters last week that Thailand will submit evidence by Friday to try to move the country off the US priority watch list. It was elevated to that list last year, when US officials said that Thailand had arrested only a few major violators of US copyrights and trademarks.

Puangrat would not comment when asked about rumours that the United States plans to downgrade Thailand even more. If Thailand were listed as a “priority foreign country,” the United States might impose economic sanctions.

But few believe the US will take that action, given the country’s return to democracy. It is more likely Thailand will receive at least another year on the priority list.

The IIPA report on Monday said that Thailand last year recorded “mixed results in copyright protection and enforcement.”

“Notwithstanding the recent efforts of the Thai Government, high levels of piracy persist and continue to claim victims.”

On one hand, there were a number of raids on malls and other sales areas. But rampant piracy continued, and, ” The book publishing industry, in particular, reports a disturbing surge of exports of high quality academic and professional books.”

The big surprise on Monday was the addition of next-door neighbour Canada to the IIPA criticism. Lumping it with serial violators Russia and China as one of the Big Three pirates was surprising. According to Smith, US business software companies lost an estimated $511 million in sales last year in Canada because of piracy, up from $494 million in 2006, One-third of the business software used in Canada in 2007 was an illegal copy, down just 1 percentage point from the previous year, the group said.

Also, 10 years after signing World Intellectual Property Organization treaties extending copyright protections to the Internet, Canada still has taken “no meaningful steps toward modernizing its copyright law to meet the global minimum standards,” the group said. The industry coalition said it “conservatively” estimates that US companies lost at least $30 billion to $35 billion in sales around the world in 2007.

China again led the list with estimated lost sales in that market of $2.98 billion, from $2.43 billion in 2006. US business software companies suffered the biggest piracy losses — $2.47 billion — the group said.

However, US recording industry losses in China more than doubled in 2007 to $451-million, as the market share for pirated music rose to 90 per cent. “Online and mobile piracy have become huge problems with China’s Internet-connected population having reached 210 million at the end of 2007 and with over 500 million mobile devices in the marketplace,” the group said. Russia, as part of its negotiations to join the World Trade Organization, signed an agreement with the United States in November 2006 pledging action to reduce piracy.

More than one year later, Russia has not fully implemented that pact and the country’s copyright piracy problem “remains one of the most serious in the world. Piracy rates for some sectors continues at over 70 per cent in 2007,” the group said. However, total losses in Russia fell last year to an estimated $1.43 billion, from $1.96 billion in 2006.

Adapted from BangkokPost

Updated: 28 Jan 2008

Intermec Technologies Corp., a leading company in automated data capture technologies, has announced that Honeywell, Inc. has become a Rapid Start licensee under Intermec’s Radio-frequency identification (RFID) patents following its acquisition of Hand Held Products, Inc.

Honeywell is a Fortune 500 multinational company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems. In December last year, it acquired Hand Held Products, the world’s largest manufacturer of linear and 2D handheld barcode scanners based on imaging technology.

Intermec holds more than 154 RFID patents covering broad areas of supply chain applications.

RFID is an automatic identification method, which is finding a growing use in enterprise supply chain management and improving the efficiency of inventory tracking and management. Honeywell’s license will give it access to this technology with respect to portable RFID readers.

But access to this technology is not exclusive to Honeywell as there are 22 other licensees under Intermec’s RFID patents, including Cisco, Datamax, EM Micro, Feig Electronics, Motorola, Philips Semiconductor, Sharp Corp., and Texas Instruments, among others.

Adapted from Computer World Singapore

Timothy ChuiMonday, January 28, 2008

International counterfeit syndicates are moving away from entertainment and luxury goods to everyday consumer items. Experts are warning that the entry into counterfeit consumables can pose a health risk to consumers. Intellectual Property Department director Stephen Shelby said counterfeiters are now targeting food and wines for the American and European markets.

At the 10th No Fakes Pledge promotion ceremony at Golden Bauhinia Square yesterday, he said the incentive for the switch was the low risk when compared with the more traditional operations in human trafficking and drugs.

The entry into counterfeit consumables pose a health risk, as seen in 2006 when dozens at the Zhongshan University Number Three Hospital in Guangzhou were treated with a drug containing fake ingredients. Fourteen died from the incident.

Shelby said retailers have to pay attention to where they sourced their products. “They have a big responsibility to their customers and, of course, risk prosecution if they are found to have sold fake goods,” he said.

For the consumer, Shelby said goods with unusual packaging or bought from suspicious outlets are telltale signs the items are fakes.

He said highly sought-after items such as the Beijing Olympic mascots found on street stalls are definitely fakes, as only two vendors in Hong Kong are authorized to sell them.

“People buy it as memorabilia, but they should know fakes have no collector’s worth, in fact they are just rubbish.”

Another speaker, Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights chairman Eddy Lee, of sauce maker Lee Kum Kee, said counterfeit cases have fallen since last year and remain stable, giving credit to the efforts of the Customs and Excise Department.

As part of the anniversary of the No Fakes Pledge, more than 20 vintage cars will participate at the Hong Kong Tourism Board’s Lunar New Year Night Parade in Tsim Sha Tsui. The cars yesterday drove from Wan Chai to North Point to encourage retailers to only sell genuine goods.

Adapted from The Standard

“In the context of the knowledge-based economy, the role of IP in development is more and more important,” said Nguyen Van Bay, head of the National Office of Intellectual Property of Viet Nam’s Research and Training centre.

“This is the first workshop held by WIPO to discuss how to improve awareness by encouraging IP research, training and development in universities.”

At the workshop which opened on Wednesday, ASEAN experts, professors, lecturers and managers are comparing notes and discussing how to promote college-level training and research in IP with experts from developed nations like the UK and Japan. In Viet Nam, there are two separate compulsory courses for law students on copyright and IP law. Some law schools also offer courses like IP in international transactions, laws on technology transfer, and dispute settlement under IP laws.

Pham Duy Nghia, associate professor and head of Business Law Department, Faculty of Law, Viet Nam National University in Ha Noi, told the workshop, “I recognised the need to set standards at least in teaching IP laws and consider ways to strengthen IP practice, education, and professional training.”

He suggested setting up a centre with regular training courses offering patent lawyer diplomas. The centre should separate academic education and professional skills training, he said.

Adapted from VNS

The chief of the Intellectual Property Department said on Saturday she feels Thailand has “sufficiently suppressed” street piracy and hopes Washington will upgrade Thailand off the intellectual property priority watch list this year. 

Puangrat Aswapisit, director-general, said her department is preparing information to submit to Washington on Thailand’s suppression of piracy during 2007.

It is expected that the information would be forwarded to the US by Feb 15, while the US is expected to report to the public on the issue by the middle of the year, she said.

Last year, Washington downgraded Thailand to the priority watch list from the (standard) watch list, saying the US was concerned with the Thai government’s lack of success in suppressing violations of intellectual property, noting that only a few major violators were apprehended.

Mrs Puangrat now says that major violators have been arrested, and that seized items would be burned soon.

She declined to comment on reports that Washington may actually further downgrade Thailand to the priority foreign country during the upcoming review.

Other sources said the US is concerned with the number of medicines removed from patent protection by compulsory licensing.

The US may employ drastic trade measures against Thailand in such a case, she said, adding that the measures should not violate the World Trade Organisation’s rules. (TNA)

Adapted from BangkokPost