Original news and analysis on international IP policy
US software giant Microsoft said Thursday that users globally have started to join the fight against software piracy by sending in over 150,000 reports about problems with fake Microsoft products over the last two years.
European Union governments have unanimously approved a roadmap for a single European patent regime. The system is seen as key to making patenting less expensive and more efficient for European inventors, but the devil, as always, is in the details, stakeholders say.
“In international law we like metaphors,” said William Patry, Senior Copyright Counsel at Google and author of the recent book Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars. One of the most pervasive of these is “a rising tide lifts all boats,” a metaphor whose danger lies in appearing logical. But making theory into copyright policy will benefit neither content creators nor those interested in preserving access to knowledge, he said.
The future of the multilateral trading system looks bleak although global trade is in good shape overall, and developing countries are becoming heavier trading partners as a new geopolitical landscape is emerging, according to panellists in a concurrent event to this week’s World Trade Organization ministerial meeting.
The World Trade Organization today wrapped up its first ministerial meeting in four years with no decisions or breakthroughs (as expected) but an informal agreement to consider by March whether members can complete the longstanding round of negotiations in 2010. Meanwhile, intellectual property issues played a tangential role in ministers’ discussions, but made several notable appearances.
Technology transfer is essential to the mitigation of climate change but empirical data on the subject is scarce, according to panellists at a parallel event to the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting. An initiative has been launched by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) to identify potential barriers to the transfer of clean technologies. Preliminary outcomes of the project were presented yesterday. One of those outcomes is a new classification scheme.
On 1 December, the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force, bringing a variety of changes across the European Union. Also this week, a new administrative cabinet has been named to represent the European Commission for the next five years, along with some changes in the structure of the EU administrative body.
Several non-governmental organisations used the World Aids Day to promote the patent pool initiative underway at UNITAID that is expected by proponents to enhance access to second line HIV/AIDS drugs. Action Against AIDS, a German NGO, released thousands of balloons…
The International Chamber of Commerce released its “Intellectual Property Guidelines for Business” in Spanish and Portuguese during a special session at the 1-3 December Fifth Global Congress on Combating Counterfeiting and Piracy in Cancun, Mexico. The IP guidelines “provide information…
Climate change measures might impact competitiveness and the multilateral trade system in its current form might not be equipped to address the issue, according to speakers at a parallel event to the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting today. At the same time, regional trade agreements might constitute free electrons in the multilateral trade system, obeying to their own rules, said speakers at other sessions of the event.
World Trade Organization members today called for a completion of the Doha Development Round of trade liberalisation talks in 2010, tying its success to the relevance of the organisation as a whole, at the opening plenary session of this week’s WTO ministerial. Members also urged a stronger review mechanism, and the head of the World Intellectual Property Organization questioned the effectiveness of the multilateral system.
The World Trade Organization’s first full ministerial in four years is not a negotiating forum. Rather, it is bringing together some 150 trade ministers for some soul-searching on the state of the multilateral system and the work of the WTO. Measuring the event’s success (or failure, as in some past ministerials) will be difficult, but new directions may be infused into the 15-year-old organisation and a high-level political statement may be used to drive trade negotiations forward in the coming year.