Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The United Nations human rights framework is being brought to bear on intellectual property law, in the hopes that the weight of expert voices in human rights can lead IP regimes toward a better balance between the needs of industry and the needs of public policy.
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.
The Intellectual Property Watch Monthly Edition features top news on international IP policymaking, the latest on who is coming and going in the international IP community, news briefs and more. The May edition is now available for subscribers.
An Argentinean philosophy professor is being sued for alleged copyright infringement for posting translated versions of French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s works on a website, according to the Copy South Research Group. The case is bringing international attention to the limitations on access to education brought about by copyright.
A new study shows a copyright exception for legalising file-sharing is feasible, as a cease-fire in the “war on copying” emerges. A new social contract between creatives and society is needed, says media sociologist Volker Grassmuck.
A United States federal court recently gave some bad news to the US government and many foreign copyright owners - including the estates of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Dmitry Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, and Igor Stravinsky. The court struck down a US statute which had restored copyright protection to the works of these foreign authors. By limiting copyright restoration, the ruling might prevent the US from fulfilling its obligations under the Berne Convention and the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
PRAGUE - The current revolution in science and information was the topic of this year’s European Patent Forum, which brought together examiners, lawyers, policymakers and other patent professionals to discuss how the pace of the patent system can mesh with today’s whirlwind of technological change.
Meanwhile, European Patent Office (EPO) President Alison Brimelow informed her staff that she will “not be seeking extension” when her current three-year contract is up at the end of June 2010.
The public domain is key to the promotion of innovation and should be fostered, but international intellectual property policies may hinder that process, said speakers at a side event to the last week’s meeting of the WIPO Committee on Development and Intellectual Property. Limitations and exceptions to copyright should be expanded and made mandatory, policymaking should be based on evidence and the public domain should be clearly defined and listed internationally, they said.
RIO DE JANEIRO - The interaction between pharmaceutical companies and physicians has been discussed intensely in the last three years in Brazil, and recently has come under heightened scrutiny.
The recent commem-oration of Earth Day and World IP Day raised the importance of IP rights to innovation and jobs, says David Hirschmann of the US Chamber of Commerce. How about calling it “Green Innovation Week”?