Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The tiny island state of Singapore has begun to ramp up its capacity for patent search and examination ahead of a bold move to adopt a new patent system, one of the proposed major amendments to its Patents Act. The Southeast Asian economic high-flyer is pressing for changes to its laws to position itself as an Asian hub for intellectual property.
The Republic of Korea has opened its fourth satellite copyright office, in the Philippines, in a bid to protect its copyrighted works amid the popularity of Korean entertainment in this Southeast Asian nation.
The All-Party Parliamentary Intellectual Property Group in the United Kingdom is undertaking an inquiry into the government's role in intellectual property (IP) promotion and protection, less than a year after the publication of an independent and comprehensive review on the UK's IP system.
With the commercial internet now in its early twenties, stakeholders are finding themselves at a crossroads, unsure whether to allow business as usual or embrace a more regulated regime. Intellectual property, with its penchant for protection, is one of those areas where the tug-of-war is most evident, and seemingly caught in the middle are internet intermediaries.
Opposing opinions on the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) clashed anew ahead of next week's meetings of the European Parliament where the EU body may make critical decisions on the fate of the deal.
Public Knowledge, a Washington, DC-based public interest group, has launched an initiative that capitalises on active participation from American online and social media users to lobby for the adoption of some reforms in internet governance aimed at protecting knowledge access.
South-east Asia's economic juggernaut Singapore will hold a public consultation on a proposal to liberalise its patent law in a bid to cement its position as the intellectual property (IP) hub in the region.
Members of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) are working to stage a diplomatic conference on the adoption of a new industrial design treaty at the earliest opportunity. The treaty, at the minimum, could harmonise certain aspects in design law, an area in intellectual property marked by stark differences in national procedures.
Operators and internet service providers in Europe resort mostly to blocking voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) and peer-to-peer traffics to guard the security of and prevent congestion on their networks, according to a preliminary report from the European Union telecommunications regulator, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC).
In a move welcomed by many in the international community, India has granted an application, its first, from a homegrown generic drug maker to manufacture and sell a patented cancer drug under a compulsory licence.
International trademark applications filed in 2011 reached a record high of 42,270 applications and a year-on-year growth of 6.5 per cent as businesses resolved to protect their brands despite last year's shaky economic situation, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) reported today.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) this week held a public hearing on a German case involving software companies Oracle and UsedSoft, the second step to a ruling that could potentially set new rules for buying and downloading software on the internet.