Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Intellectual property promotion is at the heart of a new campaign launched yesterday by the United States Chamber of Commerce with the aim of convincing decision-makers and the public at large of the value of IP in economic and social terms, and dissipate some misconceptions.
The international pharmaceutical industry this week released a policy statement targeting counterfeit medicines on the internet. Among the recommendations was for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to join the fight.
They’ve been at each other’s throats for three years, and there’s no end in sight. Over two dozen businesses involved with smartphones and tablet computers are suing one another for patent infringement in numerous lawsuits around the world. These patent wars have cost the companies billions of dollars, clogged the courts, and prevented consumers from buying some devices they want with features they prefer. Is this really the best way to promote innovation and competition?
The World Trade Organization will hold its next ministerial level meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in the first week of December 2013, it announced today.
The World Intellectual Property Organization late last night reached agreement on a timeline for completing treaties – or instruments – on a range of copyright exceptions, including the possibility of a high-level negotiation for visually impaired and blind readers in 2013.
Tech Freedom, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Free State Foundation, and the Cato Institute filed an amicus brief yesterday with the Washington, DC Court of Appeals claiming that the US Federal Communication Commission’s 2011 “Preserving the Open Internet” order is unconstitutional.
World Intellectual Property Organization members working morning, noon and night for over a week in order to agree on texts for broadcasters’ rights and a range of copyright exceptions appear to be finding ways forward on all of them as they head into the final day, according to participants.
The United States House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee today cancelled its briefing on computer equipment shipments to Iran and North Korea authorised by the World Intellectual Property Organization. The committee took the action after WIPO Director General Francis Gurry blocked two senior staff from participating in the meeting.
In the midst of negotiations in the World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee, Intellectual Property Watch caught up with WIPO Director General Francis Gurry on 20 July to discuss his vision and priorities for the organisation. Gurry, who took office in 2008 for a six-year term, spoke about rulemaking negotiations, popular IP infrastructure programmes, the coming explosion in trademark law, and calculating the organisation’s development expenditures.
The European Commission (EC) announced today that it would begin a period of public consultation on the subject of internet neutrality.
The World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) is meeting intensively to try to resolve differences on a variety of instruments, from visually impaired readers, to broadcasting, to educational and research institutions. Intellectual Property Watch has the latest texts.
A new study sponsored by the Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA) sheds light on the impact of strong intellectual property protection on access to medicines.