Original news and analysis on international IP policy
One controversial issue from early days of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) could come to final closure ten years later: the decoupling from US oversight of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which manages the central root zone for the domain name system. Meanwhile, the next round of new internet domains is being teed up, the head of the domain name system oversight body has said.
A special committee at the World Intellectual Property Organisation on software licensing, a globally harmonized software licence model and a dispute resolution system were among the ideas presented to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) at panel it hosted at day one of the 2016 WSIS Forum meeting in Geneva.
Ever heard of Törkölypálinka? It is a Hungarian grape marc spirit and one of approximately 200 geographical origins listed by the European Commission negotiators of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). In their newly published proposals, the EU negotiators laid out their ideas on GI protection in the deal, and point to an earlier EU-US agreement with regard to GI protection of wines and spirits. But they also acknowledge the need for considerable bridging between the two systems. GI protection is expected to be one of the highly controversial issues in the “end game” of TTIP.
Witnesses testifying at the United States House Communications and Technology Subcommittee today unanimously reported success of the multistakeholder preparations for the transition of oversight over the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) from the US government to the multistakeholder internet community.
The Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) at its 55th meeting in Marrakesh today (10 March) passed a milestone resolution to ship a package of proposals by its stakeholder groups to the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to end the latter's role as an oversight body for the internet. If approved, ICANN will be the next manager of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which is a set of registries for domain names, IP addresses and protocol parameters essential for the functioning of the global internet.
Governments gathered at the 55th meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Marrakesh this week have agreed to not object to the final proposal on enhancing ICANN accountability. By the move, the governments cleared the way to allow a potential handover of the management of the central root zone of the domain name system and other core databases to ICANN from the United States Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
The 55th meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Marrakesh this week is expected to finalise the last proposal necessary for the transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), a set of core functions necessary for the running of the internet.
The European Union and Canada have jointly announced the finalisation of the legal review for Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).
The saga of fights between the President of the European Patent Office, Benoît Battistelli, and the trade union SUEPO goes on with a recent decision to fire two and degrade one member of the trade union. Demonstrations at both the Netherlands and the Munich sites of the EPO continue, and further divisions between the president and the EPO Administrative Council are being reported. Battistelli spoke with Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch in January about his view of the fight and about what else he has on his plate as he had decided to continue for one more term in office.
By July trade negotiators from the United States and the European Union want to present a draft text that only has brackets for the “most sensitive issues” in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This was announced by Ignacio Bercero, chief negotiator for the European Union, and his US counterpart Dan Mullaney during a press conference today after this week's 12th round of TTIP negotiations in Brussels.
Transitioning of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) out of the United States government - or not – is the top issue of a narrower internet governance community in 2016. Yet looming behind the many high-level government events are some more controversial topics that are attracting a wider set of stakeholders: the unresolved issues of privacy, free flow of data, surveillance and encryption, as well as the security or rather insecurity of a space of networked machines, including military machines.
Just days before the restart of negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) on 22 February in Brussels, a large coalition of non-governmental organisations led by the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) published a critical report on new proposals for the highly debated investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms. The activists called the Investment Court System (ICS) prepared by EU Commissioner Malmstroem as an alternative a mere “ISDS zombie.”