Original news and analysis on international IP policy
After intensive negotiations, the World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee reached agreement Friday night on a plan to address a proposed treaty on copyright exceptions for visually impaired persons and others. There also appeared to be a renewed focus on a decade-old treaty proposal on audiovisual performances, according to participants.
A treaty on copyright exceptions for visually impaired persons proposed this week at the World Intellectual Property Organization met with no immediate objections, according to participants, but how to treat the proposal and other limitations and exceptions in the future has led to a sharpening divergence among governments.
The World Intellectual Property Organization is expected this month to create a new deputy director general for global challenges, and will raise trademarks to the DDG level while moving copyright responsibility back to the assistant director general level, according to sources at WIPO. The appointments have not been finalised and consultations may be continuing.
The World Trade Organization on Wednesday announced that the next ministerial-level negotiating meeting will be held on 30 November to 2 December at the WTO headquarters in Geneva. The ministerial will have a theme of “The WTO, the Multilateral Trading…
World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy on Tuesday named his four existing deputies to new terms. Alejandro Jara of Chile, Valentine Rugwabiza of Rwanda, Harsha Singh of India and Rufus Yerxa of the United States will be retained in…
A group of Latin American and Caribbean countries have declared their intention to support discussion of a proposal to negotiate a World Intellectual Property Organization treaty ensuring an exception to copyright for visually impaired readers who lack access to protected reading materials. The proposal is expected to be brought to the floor of a key copyright committee meeting this week.
Applause broke out at the annual World Health Assembly Friday as agreement was reached at the end of a five-year process to devise a plan for boosting research and development on and access to drugs needed by developing countries. Now with the full assembly's approval, the focus will turn to implementation and as-yet unclear ways to pay for it.
Some five years after setting a mandate to address barriers faced by poor countries in accessing needed medicines, World Health Organization members are near agreement on a strategy and plan of action. But a key question remains on WHO involvement in a possible treaty on biomedical research and development for diseases disproportionately affecting developing nations, and the WHO secretariat is facing accusations that the process has not been amply inclusive.
The United States Chamber of Commerce, the largest US business group, on Monday issued a release applauding a new bill introduced into the US House of Representatives by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (Democrat, California) that would “enhance…
In the continued absence of a new model that adequately includes them, major global media groups remain concerned over revenues lost to unauthorised file-sharing decades after the arrival of the internet, and their focus is still on enforcement and extension of their rights.
World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy continues to be engaged on intellectual property issues as WTO members begin to revive broader trade negotiations. This week Lamy hosted the heads of the World Intellectual Property Organization and World Health Organization together, and then chaired a consultation with ambassadors on proposals to amend WTO rules on intellectual property and trade.
Word is out among Geneva diplomats that seven officials have been informally proposed to be the next cabinet of World Intellectual Property Organization Director General Francis Gurry.