If I am buying and reselling from China do I need to worry about patent infringement?
Yes, you should worry about patent infringement. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are infringing just by reselling. I would suggest speaking with a patent attorney to determine whether your specific activity is infringing a patent.Generally, a patent will protect its holder from others attempting to sell the same or similar goods. However, patents are limited to a specific region, so if the goods in question are only patented in China, there would be no problem reselling them in the US assuming you acquired them legally. Many other factors are in play though so you should really speak with an attorney about your situation to determine the legality of your conduct.To answer your other questions, you generally would only be sued for any damages caused by your reselling. That means that you would not be sued in excess of what you make, but you would probably have to give up all of your profits.Again, the act of reselling is not itself illegal -- there are ways to resell patented goods legally. One very common way is to acquire a license from the patent holder. This would cost you some profits, but would be a very easy way to stay out of trouble.I hope this answered your question, but if you are looking for a patent attorney, you should visit LawTrades. Many inventors turn to us in order to connect with top attorneys across the country. We offer start to finish project management, free initial consults, flexible payment options and a satisfaction guarantee. Hope this helps!
Can I be sued for copyright infringement if I delete my site?
As you’ve figured out, copyright law is enforced by lawsuits and the threat thereof. If the copyright holder can show you accrued significant financial benefit from posting the image, or damaged her business because you got use out of it for which you did not compensate her, she could have grounds for a lawsuit. It is unlikely she will file one, however, because the costs of a suit probably outweigh any damages she could show.I would warn strictly against ignoring her email. You will show good faith by responding that you thought it was OK to publish it but now realize this was not the case, and that you took it down immediately. An apology and recognition of the mistake will go a long way to ensuring there is no lawsuit, and it is the right thing to do.I know of one lawsuit (not intellectual property) in which a plaintiff won $165,000, and later said he would have settled for far less if the defendant had responded to his letters prior to the suit.There are plenty of free images out there. Go to Flickr and look for Creative Commons or other licensed images you can use for free with proper attribution. Or take your own. You wouldn’t want someone stealing your work.
How do I protect my app idea when I am outsourcing its development?
Protecting your idea when outsourcing is nothing different than protecting it when developing in-house. The same way you are signing contracts with in-house developers, you are signing in agreements with the company you are outsourcing to, there is no difference.If your idea is in early days and you are still in the research process, there are a few ways to share it with potential developers without exposing yourself to too much risk.Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA) - a legal document that both parties sign to acknowledge that the project discussed is not to be shared with anyone outside the project without permission.Use comparable examples - when describing an idea to a programmer or engineer, explain it with something comparable.Break it up - Discuss only parts of the idea with certain people. Don't expose your secret weapon. For example, discuss the technical parts, but don't tell how you are planning to monetize it.There is no real, bulletproof way to stop someone from stealing your idea. Instead of focusing on protecting it, you should focus on executing it.An idea is just that – an idea. Ideas are worthless unless accompanied by action.You should work on finding out how you are going to make money from it, how you should make your company more competitive etc. The closer you get to making your product a reality, the more risk there is that someone from outside will try to steal it.I am running an outsourcing development company and I am discussing different ideas with clients on daily basis. I am not thinking about stealing their ideas, I am thinking how we can help them to execute their ideas and grow their business instead. If we achieve that, that means more business for us.I know not everyone is going to agree with me on this, and that’s alright.
Are there countries without copyright laws?
I agree with Guy Lewis - what matters is not the laws but their enforcement. During the 18th and 19th centuries (and even somewhat into the 20th) the US had good copyright laws and completely failed to enforce them. UK and European publishers of books, art, and even early silent movies complained bitterly as people in the US just freely reproduced and sold obvious duplicates of (copyrighted) continental material.In the late 20th century the situation was reversed with IP owners in the US complaining bitterly that China refused to enforce its own IP laws as well as international treaties. The result was that you could walk down streets in both major Chinese cities and in US as well and find Chinese-made duplicates of movies (first VCR cassettes then later CDs and DVDs) music, software, and physical goods that had been imported or smuggled into the US.Today the situation has changed and other countries (e.g. Vietnam) get complaints from China because these other countries don't enforce such laws and so people there make copies of Chinese IP.The fact that this pattern has continually repeated itself throughout centuries has led some scholars to argue that weak or no enforcement of IP laws is a necessary prerequisite to the development of such industries locally. In effect, Hollywood would never have gotten started without those early American movie pirates; ditto New York publishers. Today we see many successful Chinese software makers that in the past had associations with illegal software copying in that country.This is where I disagree with Jai Parimi's posted cartoon. History argues that without these laws, industries flourish. Indeed there are entire industries today (e.g. fashion) where wholesale copying is the core of the business. Without style setting, seasonal trends, and trend-following plus variation there might not be a fashion industry at all.
Why has China openly, and consistently, demonstrated an unwillingness to respect, and enforce, those intellectual property rights that are commonly respected by the law, in most countries around the world?
Intellectual property law is contradictory to the concept of freedom and liberty. It is against the concept of Capitalism. Only crony-capitalists want to have IP law to protect their monopoly. The idea of IP law is not a truth that is widely accepted by all the people around the world; it is just like a religious culture promoted and propagated by it cult members.Roderick T. Long argues that the concept of intellectual property is not libertarian. He holds that prohibiting people from using, reproducing, and trading copyrighted material is an infringement of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.Murray Rothbard argues for allowing contractually arising infinite copyright terms and against the need for any government role in protecting intellectual property. He states that government's involvement in defining arbitrary limits on the duration, scope, etc. of intellectual property in order to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is inherently problematic, since "By what standard do you judge that research expenditures are 'too much,' 'too little,' or just about enough?" He argues that intellectual property laws can actually hinder innovation, since competitors can be indefinitely discouraged from further research expenditures in the general area covered by the patent because the courts may hold their improvements as infringements on the previous patent, and the patent holder is discouraged from engaging in further research in this field because the privilege discourages his improvement of his invention for the entire period of the patent, with the assurance that no competitor can trespass on his domain.Libertarian perspectives on intellectual property - Wikipedia
Why is the rate of piracy on the internet in Vietnam is 80%, but still not be sanctioned?
It’s incorrect to say that countries are not sanctioned for copyright violations. The US has imposed a variety of sanctions in the form of import tariffs and similar against countries such as Russia and China in the past for ignoring copyright treaty requirements. A country is not sanctioned for acts of illegal copying of its citizens but rather for failing to live up to its international agreements, which often include taking action to protect the intellectual property rights of other countries.Whether or not Vietnam is a signatory to such treaties is something you could look up. Such treaties also have provisions for how to impose such sanctions, which may include steps such as mandatory pre-sanction negotiation or arbitration, appeal of cases to the WIPO or other international body, and so on. These processes can take years - it’s possible that other countries are indeed pursuing such process, but often the treaties require that ongoing proceedings be kept secret. So outsiders would not know about it until a decision was reached and published.Even then, however, that’s a sanction against a country that affects things such as its exported goods. Vietnam’s exports are quite small and applying sanctions or tariffs against them is unlikely to have a significant effect. Since the process of getting a sanctions declaration is so long and costly, and the payoff quite small, why bother to pursue such a thing?Finally, even in the face of sanctions, individual illegal copying and counterfeiting can continue. China today is one of the largest sources in the world for a wide variety of counterfeit goods, sold under popular (and expensive) brand names elsewhere. China’s exports are huge and quite valuable. Still, the agreements and sanctions have not stopped illegal copying in China. I would expect them to be similarly ineffective at the “street level” in Vietnam.