Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The Snowden revelations have spurred yet another discussion on how to internationalise or globalise the oversight over the management of core infrastructures of the internet, namely the so-called IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) functions. Why not let the private sector decide?
After three rounds of negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), European Union Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht this week welcomed the progress so far. But negotiators have to “step up a gear,” de Gucht said after a two-day stocktaking meeting with the United States Trade Representative Michael Froman in Washington, DC on 18 February. Meanwhile, USTR announced new steps to raise public participation in trade negotiations.
Over the revelations of mass surveillance of internet users and government officials, the topic of internet governance has risen to the mainstream political agenda. And a Communication on “Europe's role in shaping the future of Internet Governance” passed by the European Commission today would put “Europe in the center of the debate,” EC Vice President Neelie Kroes said in a press conference in Brussels.
With 640 of 680 votes, the European Parliament today passed a new directive on “collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses in the internal market.” Rarely before has the usually controversial subject of copyright rallied such broad agreement in Parliament.
32 farmer, breeder and environmental organisations from 26 countries gathered by the “no-patents-on-seeds” alliance today filed an opposition against a patent on an insect-resistant sweet pepper at the European Patent Office in Munich.
At the Munich Security Conference a year ago, there was a considerable first push for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Eight months after the start of official TTIP negotiations and with the Snowden revelations in between, the tone at the 50th edition of the high-level foreign policy event in Munich is somewhat changed.
Those interested in internet governance will have to put some money aside for 2014: rarely have there been so many conferences to talk about how to manage core internet resources and develop the common rules to govern more general aspects of global net communication.
European Union Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht today announced a three-month public consultation on investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
The European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs today received an oral summary of the draft recommendations on mass surveillance, after hearing the testimony of former Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald.
Mike Rogers, chairman of the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, today defended the work of the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies in the US at a meeting with members of the European Parliament, and called for a united front against the theft of intellectual property by China.
In time for the start of the third round of trade negotiations between the United States and European Union, EU transparency organisation Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) published the first interesting leak on the substance of the talks.
Even for the “low-hanging fruit,” the 125 ministers gathered in Bali at this week’s World Trade Organization Ninth Ministerial Conference will have to work hard. After talks on food security and subsidisation broke down last week in Geneva, the WTO has rearranged the agenda to allow more space for ministers to engage in direct negotiations, WTO Spokesman Keith Rockwell said at a briefing on the eve of the event.