Category Features

Special Report – ICANN: New CEO, New Government Role, Accelerated International Domains

With three important processes coming to a head at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) this year, it is difficult not to overlook some changes in the private body, which oversees the internet domain name system. At ICANN's recent board meeting, the appointment of a shiny new CEO, former United States Homeland Security Department cybersecurity director Rod Beckstrom, drew attention away from top issues, which include the introduction of new top-level domains, ongoing institutional reform, and the looming September expiration of the ICANN-US government agreement.

Collaborative Innovation And ICTs Could Give Economy Back Its Colours

Innovation and technology will be key to emergence from the global economic crisis, according to speakers at a recent United Nations conference on innovation-based competitiveness. However, innovation should be collaborative and involve resources inside and outside companies and institutions.

US Cablevision Decision Has Implications For Cloud Computing, Online Advertising

A recent United States Supreme Court order letting stand a decision that a proposed remote digital video recorder does not violate copyright law has major implications for internet “cloud computing” and advertisers, intellectual property lawyers say.

Tribes To WIPO — Long-Term Protection For Traditional Knowledge Needed

terrt-frontpage1Indigenous people and governments like the United States' may be able to help each other, especially when it comes to protecting traditional knowledge while also using it combat global crises like climate change, says Terry Williams of the Tulalip Tribes. But additional protection for traditional knowledge is needed.

Kenya Pressured To Implement Anti-Counterfeit Law Despite Access Fears

NAIROBI - An influential manufacturers' lobbying group in Kenya is pushing the government to start enforcing an anti-counterfeiting law within weeks, despite fears from public health advocates that the new rules will impede access to generic drugs and set an unwanted precedent in East Africa.

South African Authors Seek First Public Lending Right In A Developing Country

South Africa could become the first developing country to permit authors to be paid when libraries lend their books if an authors’ group gets it way, but the proposal is likely to spur strong opposition from access-to-knowledge advocates and libraries.

WHO Or Who Should Guarantee The Right To Health?

With implementation of the World Health Organization strategy on intellectual property and innovation beginning in earnest, international experts this week debated how human rights could be infused into global health strategies - including the possibility of new international agreements on research and development - and whether WHO is up to the task.

First Result Of Benefit-Sharing Mechanism For FAO Treaty; Push For Farmers’ Rights

Members of a global treaty on plant genetic resources this month announced 11 new projects on biodiversity conservation in research institutions, and financed by a benefit-sharing fund whose sustainability is still in doubt. The group separately acted to better protect farmers’ rights at the national level.

Nations Work To Make IP Systems Combat Climate Change

With less than a year to complete a new global plan to combat climate change, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is under pressure to be able to move to a decision at the end of the year. But it is in the longer-term action plans that intellectual property issues are featuring most prominently, as parties to the UNFCCC aim to satisfy the need for growth in poor countries, and to mitigate effects of growth on the environment - a move that will require effective technology transfer.

UN Special Rapporteur: IP In Health Helping Those With Most Means, Less Need

Nearly two billion people lack access to the medical care they need, and in the developing world those who do manage to have access are overwhelmingly paying out-of-pocket, often triggering a fall into poverty. The monopoly-making power of patents to drive the cost of medicines beyond affordability is a significant contributor to this disturbing trend, says a report of the United Nations rapporteur on the right to health presented at last week’s Human Rights Council.