Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The World Health Organization has announced that its Global Medicines Safety Database is now open to the general public. The database named VigiAccess can now be accessed on any computer or smartphone in the world.
Mattel's and Toytalks’ “Hello Barbie” Friday night received a Big Brother Award in Germany. The US doll found itself in illustrious company for the negative privacy award with two German Ministers of the Interior, a Minister of Health, several Amazon ventures and Elance-O-Desk. The Organization Digital Courage has handed out the awards since 2000.
A wave of protest marches and information events against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA), and the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) yesterday swept across Europe, the US, Canada and number of other countries. On the eve of the 9th TTIP negotiation round set for New York (20-24 April), thousands took to the streets in the European capitals of London, Brussels and Helsinki.
Music is the chosen theme of the World Intellectual Property Organization to celebrate this year’s World Intellectual Property Day on 26 April. The organisation has a series of events planned starting next week, and in particular a roundtable on the future of the music industry with a panel of speakers from across the world.
Member governments will discuss the development dimension of the World Intellectual Property Organization next week, looking in particular at how the United Nations organisation is implementing the recommendations of its Development Agenda in its activities.
CAPE TOWN - A growing patent examination workload and increasing global anti-IP sentiment are some of the challenges the European Patent Office faces, according to EPO President Benoit Battistelli.
An industry proposal calling for a harmonised procedure to simplify applications for new varieties of plants and heighten intellectual property protection stirred debate at the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) last month.
CAPE TOWN - Pharmaceutical patents and access to medicines was the focus of an animated panel discussion by experts offering divergent views on the topic at intellectual property group FICPI’s 2015 World Congress, currently underway in Cape Town, South Africa.
The European Union and the United States today held the 13th bilateral Information Society Dialogue and issued a statement highlighting issues discussed and agreed.
The two government entities covered topics such as the EU Digital Single Market, digital skills, open internet, the data-driven economy, internet governance, the United Nations review of the 2003-2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), and cooperation on international telecommunications policy.
A committee of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe is drafting a recommendation on internet freedom and is requesting public comments until the end of the month.
[From the New York Times Opinion pages, by Margot Kaminski:] COLUMBUS, Ohio — WHEN WikiLeaks recently released a chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, critics and proponents of the deal resumed wrestling over its complicated contents. But a cover page of the leaked document points to a different problem: It announces that the draft text is classified by the United States government. Even if current negotiations over the trade agreement end with no deal, the draft chapter will still remain classified for four years as national security information. The initial version of an agreement projected by the government to affect millions of Americans will remain a secret until long after meaningful public debate is possible. [Note: article mentions a US FOIA case by IP-Watch]
The World Health Organization today issued a call for disclosure of results from clinical trials for medical products, no matter what the results of the trials were. And a variety of events and publications are addressing medicines access today.