Original news and analysis on international IP policy
MUNICH - The staid little Swiss town of Lucerne this week sees round number nine of the negotiations for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). While the 11 negotiating parties gather in the Palace Hotel, the Swiss Pirate Party together with their Pirate colleagues from Germany and Switzerland will organise a rally at the Lucerne train station.
A .xxx domain may finally go to the internet root after years of debate. The Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in their official meeting yesterday decided to restart negotations with .xxx applicant ICM registry…
Member states at the World Intellectual Property Organization late Thursday night were unable to reach agreement on a draft chair’s conclusions text summarising a four-day WIPO copyright committee meeting, crashing the prospect of swift progress on improving international access to literary material for the visually impaired.
The head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is stepping down after five years in office, and his successor has been named from within the organisation. John Kennedy, chairman and CEO, said he was returning to a…
BRUSSELS - Applicants for new top-level internet domains may face another round of discussions before the long-awaited application period for .nyc, .shop or .gay can happen.
The Obama administration’s release of its national intellectual property strategy yesterday was welcomed by many groups representing businesses and intellectual property holders who said it could serve as an example to other countries.
Limitations and exceptions are once again a major topic at the UN intellectual property organisation’s meeting on copyrights and related rights. Delegations this week are discussing several draft proposals to improve access, in particular for visually impaired people, each with their own set of recommendation. With a fourth and new proposal from the African countries on the table, delegates are meeting to try to find common ground, raising the expectations of civil society.
Quality across patent systems has been understudied but a new methodology put forward by the former chief economist of the European Patent Office suggests that the EPO provides higher quality services than its United States and Japan counterparts. Efforts at collaborative work between patent offices are being made but mutual recognition might not be possible or desirable without some harmonisation in the way the different systems operate.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) yesterday held a key signing ceremony implementing an advanced new security system for the internet domain name system (DNS). DNSSEC, DNS security extensions, is expected to secure the internet domain name…
The date 20 June will mark the authorised end of Viagra’s patent in Brazil, following a 28 April decision of the Superior Court of Justice. Since the decision, five laboratories have requested registration for drugs that are generic versions of…
While World Trade Organization members met with their usual stasis last week on a mandated register for geographical indications, industry proponents of GIs continued lobbying to raise the awareness of delegates of countries not historically concerned with this form of intellectual property protection.
Lynn C. Tyler writes: The litigation provisions of the recently-enacted legislation establishing a pathway to bring biosimilars to market contain “patent” ambiguities in key areas, particularly whether the various lists of patents to be litigated are exclusive. Courts will have to resolve these issues over the next several years, likely at great (and unnecessary) expense and uncertainty to litigants.