Original news and analysis on international IP policy
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen With the United Nations negotiations on harmonising international patent law in deadlock, a group of developed countries has agreed on a basis for its internal discussion, according to a draft meeting report. The group’s plan…
By William New ATHENS – The World Summit on the Information Society told the world to build “dynamic” coalitions to address problems related to the Internet, and this week, the world responded. At the four-day Internet Governance Forum here ending…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen At a recent World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting, Switzerland questioned an earlier proposal by Norway to link WTO intellectual property rules with the protection of biodiversity. But Peru, as one of the demanders of such…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen Participants at a recent United Nations seminar on developing country production of essential medicines agreed that such a scenario should be possible but they disagreed on the means to get there. While there was disagreement…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen As part of its greater focus on accountability and transparency, the global pharmaceutical industry will launch a new code of marketing ethics next year, it announced at its recent biennial meeting in Geneva. Meanwhile, its…
By John T. Aquino for Intellectual Property Watch The past few weeks have witnessed the evolution of the world of user-upload sites. MySpace.com and YouTube.com were once youthful rebels – their founders were young, their audience was predominantly under 30.…
Niels Louwaars writes: Biotech companies, particularly those based in the United States consider that their patents on plant biotech inventions do not allow the use of the plants containing the invention as a source for further breeding, even if the…
By William New The 2006 annual assemblies of the World Intellectual Property Organization ended on 3 October with a somewhat rare spirit of cooperation and some stiff reminders about the policy and administrative work to be done in the coming…
Por Sarah Lai Stirland para Intellectual Property Watch La pujante intentona de las compañías de tecnología de la información en los Estados Unidos para transformar el sistema de patentes de su país avanzó poco en el Congreso estadounidense en 2006…
Perhaps the biggest lobbying effort in the history of the European Union came in the 2005 fight to change the European patent system to include computer-related inventions, which ended in failure. Now, industry lobbyists are looking for new ways to…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen The implementation process of global intellectual property rules was debated at a recent World Trade Organization public forum, which focused on the overall future of the organisation. According to the WTO, the 25-26 September forum…
Gilberto Gil, an internationally acclaimed musician and songwriter since the 1960s, is Brazil’s Minister of Culture. Educated in his native state of Bahia, Gil has lived and travelled extensively abroad and speaks four languages fluently. He reflects the Brazilian government’s…