Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The World Intellectual Property Organization has urged the organisation responsible for the internet domain name system to step back from revising its procedures for judging disputes about cybersquatting. WIPO said a 6 May letter that ICANN has not sufficiently taken trademark owners' concerns into account.
More than five years since the last UN-led World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and less than five years before the 2015 target date of the Millennium Development Goals, experts and representatives of needy countries are in Geneva to assess how it is going. One thing they are being told: the price of information and communications technology services has dropped in the past two years.
NEW YORK - Experts at a recent conference on licensing revealed some of the behind the scenes thinking within industry on how to do great deals and keep from getting burned.
Several large technology companies such as Microsoft and Sony Ericsson have filed applications at the European Trademark Office seeking to invalidate Apple’s obtained rights to the trademarks ‘App Store’ and ‘Appstore.’
Intellectual property rights holders, access to knowledge proponents, presumably online scam artists, and possibly governments and international organisations interested in internet governance heard the call of the introduction this week of the “Protect IP Act” in the US Senate. The bill is aimed at strengthening US law enforcement’s ability to stop international websites offering counterfeit goods or unauthorised copyrighted content.
The European Commission recently signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at boosting cooperation between rights holders and internet platforms in the fight against counterfeit products sold online.
Two new reports circulated in Geneva this week examine ways to improve technology transfer to least-developed countries (LDCs) as mandated under international intellectual property trade rules, and assessments of the intellectual property needs of LDCs in recent years.
Colonial history says that indigenous peoples were in the past sometimes asked to sign treaties that may not have been in their best interest or that were not honoured. Now, under the aegis of the United Nations, some indigenous peoples fear it may be happening again, only this time they are fighting to be at the table as the subject is their traditional practices, and the outcome would apply on a global scale.
World Intellectual Property Organization members this week set the stage for text-based negotiations for an international instrument on the protection of traditional knowledge, folklore and genetic resources.
Negotiators trying this week to advance talks for UN World Intellectual Property Organization treaties on traditional knowledge, genetic resources, and folklore have made progress on draft texts, but are facing sharp criticism from indigenous groups and some governments claiming their concerns are being ignored.
The chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation has announced he will introduce legislation that would allow consumers to control the collection and use of their personal information by online companies. The bill would include the possibility of enforcement action against non-complying companies.
NEW YORK – The United States Patent and Trademark Office is operating at a “higher level” these days, trying to look beyond patent numbers to patent quality and value, USPTO Director David Kappos told a group of licensing executives yesterday.