Original news and analysis on international IP policy
A recent book comes in time for the international policy debates coming to a head over access to medicines, intellectual property rights and public health in developing countries.
Maintaining openness and promoting access were two major themes that emerged during the Global INET conference opening session yesterday. A panel of key internet actors gave their perspectives on the past, present and future of the internet, in line with the conference theme, “Meeting at the Crossroads: Imagining the Future of the Internet.”
A major consumer group today released the results of its annual survey of 30 countries' copyright laws and concluded that bias against consumers in favour of multinational copyright holders is "entrenched" and that there is a "global outcry" about overly strong copyright enforcement legislation. Meanwhile, international journalists groups joined songwriters, composers, film directors, screenwriters, illustrators, photographers and visual authors across Europe today to launch a public campaign "to bring an end to the unfair contractual practices facing creators."
A copy of a key judgment by the High Court of Kenya last week that found a national anti-counterfeiting law was overly broad and might interfere with access to generic medicines is now available on Intellectual Property Watch.
The 2012 Global INET Forum is uniting some of the architects and builders behind the internet with the industry leaders and policymakers who are shaping it today in an event taking place in Geneva from 22-24 April.
At the close of a WIPO meeting to advance a text to become a potential treaty to protect traditional knowledge, some countries found that the results of the session were somewhat disappointing, although some progress had been achieved.
The High Court of Kenya yesterday ruled that the country's 2008 Anti-Counterfeit Act was too broad and could interfere with the flow of legal generic medicines to patients, leading the UNAIDS organisation to issue a statement praising the decision. It also said intellectual property rights are not more important than life and health, according to UNAIDS.
An international convention on research and development for neglected diseases has never been so closely within reach. A World Health Organization expert group is recommending the implementation of a legally binding instrument to secure new sources of funding to spur health research in areas where the current system has failed.
The US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) on Monday re-issued a request for proposals to manage the sensitive IANA contract. IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority function, includes the management of the central root zone of the internet domain name system, the allocation of internet protocol addresses to the Regional Internet Registries and other core parts of the internet infrastructure.
From the outset of a World Intellectual Property Organization meeting to advance a potential treaty text on the protection of traditional knowledge, discussions on draft articles of the possible treaty confirmed divergence of views, notably between developed and developing countries.
The rapporteur of the lead committee of the European Parliament on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, David Martin, today published his draft recommendation on the highly controversial agreement. If the International Trade Committee agrees on the draft, the plenary will be asked to state that it "declines to consent to conclusion of the agreement."
Executive Director Ellen 't Hoen is departing the Medicines Patent Pool, the cutting edge UN spin-off project that works to lower prices on and stimulate new development of HIV medicines and other products through negotiating voluntary licence agreements. According to a release, 't Hoen has fulfilled the mission of guiding the organisation from a startup onto "firm footing" and has informed the Board that she will leave on 1 May.