Welcome to the May edition of Simpson Grierson's x-tech ezine.

We have 4 articles for this issue.

In our first article, Don Holborow and Adam Jackson look at a possible situation where the other party to one of your contracts is doing something to your advantage because they believe you will refrain from exercising your strict legal rights if they do. Only you haven't actually promised not to exercise those rights, and have every intention of eventually doing so. Do you need to enlighten the counterparty and risk them stopping work, or can you simply sit back and take advantage, knowing the only cost will be a sense of guilt?

The recent conclusion of New Zealand's free trade negotiations with China has been a major business news headline in recent weeks. Earl Gray and Emma Shearing look at the intellectual property measures adopted under this agreement and the likely consequences for rights holders in the aftermath in their article 'Free Trade with China - Big News for Business, a Soft Nudge for Intellectual Property Rights'.

In 'Potential Provider Liability for Online Discrimination' Karen Ngan and Ben Lenihan look at a recent decision of a full panel of the United States Court of Appeals ruling on responsibility and liability of service providers operating on the internet for discriminatory content posted by users of their services.

Finally, New Zealand's copyright law has been brought into the twenty first century with the passing of the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act on 8 April 2008. In our fourth article, Richard Watts and Sonya Hill look at the timely changes and potential limitations under the new Act and comment on their significance.

We hope you enjoy reading this edition of x-tech. As always, please let us know if there is a topic you'd like us to cover and feel free to forward this ezine to friends or colleagues. If you're not on the distribution list - why not sign up?

Regards,

Simpson Grierson's Information Communications and Technology Group

When you are releasing commercially sensitive information to a person outside of your business, you need to ensure that person is bound by an obligation to not use that information for any reason other than the particular purpose for which you provided that information to them. So, if you are providing product specifications to a designer to provide you with manufacturing drawings, you should ensure that all information provided is clearly marked as confidential to your business, and that the person enters into an appropriate confidentiality arrangement with your business under which they are required to not use that information except for the purpose for which it is provided (ie producing the drawings for you) and to return the information to you (or destroy it) when the job has been completed.

Answered by Karen Ngan