Abstract In this article we develop a simple economic model to analyse the effects of injunctions obtained by the holders of standard essential patents (SEPs), which shows that patent hold-ups involve two types of behaviours in the context of SEP-encumbered fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) commitments. One is general trading hold-up, which is a phenomenon described in transaction cost economics; the other is an abuse of market power prohibited by anti-trust law and/or competition policy. Therefore, it is utterly vital to identify the proper role of private governance and anti-trust intervention. A FRAND commitment does not include a waiver of the right of the holder of an SEP to seek injunctions. The holder of an SEP still can obtain injunctions. However, the granting of injunctions for holders of SEPs should be limited in special circumstances, so as to balance the interests of patentee and user. The holder of an SEP seeking an injunction against a willing licensee may not necessarily constitute an abuse of dominance; anti-trust scrutiny needs to pay much attention to anti-competitive effects. China's Patent Law lacks provisions regarding injunctive relief. China's Civil Procedure Law is vague with regard to the granting of injunctions, as are relevant judicial interpretations by the Supreme People's Court. The decision in InterDigital and the draft of the Anti-monopoly Guidelines (2017) in China demonstrate there are some issues which need to be resolved for the Anti-monopoly Law and the enforcement thereof.
SummaryBringing together the classic defense of liberty and democracy, the political economy of hierarchy, endogenous growth theory, and the new institutional economics on growth, we propose a new institutional theory that identifies democracy's unique advantage in prompting economic growth. We contend that the channel of liberty‐to‐innovation is the most critical channel in which democracy holds a unique advantage over autocracy in promoting growth, especially during the stage of growth via innovation. Our theory thus predicts that democracy holds a positive but indirect effect upon growth via the channel of liberty‐to‐innovation, conditioned by the level of economic development. We then present quantitative evidence for our theory. To our best knowledge, we are the first to propose such an indirect and conditional effect of democracy upon economic development and provide systematic evidence. Our study promises to integrate and reconcile many seemingly unrelated and often contradictory theories and evidence regarding regime and growth, including providing a possible explanation for the inconclusive results from regressing overall regime score against the rate of economic growth or change in level of GDP per capita.
The world's overall fertility rate is declining while the life expectancy is increasing, the population structure is aging, the dependency ratio in Macao will steadily increase to 38.6% at the end of 2031. The median age of Macao is rising from Aged 38.1 to 45.5 during the period of 2011 to 2031. In this view, Macao becomes the aging society.In order to establish a basis for the establishment of a central provident fund system, the Macao SAR Government implemented the central savings system in 2009 through the General Rules for the Establishment and Management of Individual Accounts of the Central Savings System through Administrative Regulation No. 31/2009 to allocate funds for eligible account holders, Subsequently, the Government of the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) promulgated the Act "Non-mandatory Central Provident Fund System".