Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The World Intellectual Property Organization went to India last week to highlight the country’s success in creating a digital library of Indian traditional knowledge, which it uses to prevent illegitimate patenting of its resources. But whether WIPO found a way to fit the Indian project into the UN agency’s mission to protect and promote intellectual property rights was unclear.
The research-based pharmaceutical industry is working to bring a fresh face to the international public health policy arena in Geneva, most recently through a new initiative on technology transfer. Working through the industry’s Geneva-based trade association, the effort to be seen in a more positive light comes after years of doubts about the transparency of its involvement in these issues and could change the tenor of international negotiations.
Knowledge Ecology International, an influential Washington, DC-based non-governmental group working on public health and knowledge access issues, has added a new staff attorney.
A top European pharmaceutical industry association has named a new director general, coming from Sweden.
Companies doing business in the United States have, for the past 15 months, found themselves in the cross-hairs. Bayer, Nike, L’Oreal, Sony, Wal-Mart, Novo Nordisk and hundreds of other firms have been sued for making or selling products displaying incorrect or expired patent numbers. And the liability for such false patent marking can be astronomical, with a defendant potentially facing fines of billions or even trillions of dollars.
An alleged official document leaked last week showed that the United States is taking the lead in escalating intellectual property rights enforcement in negotiations for a regional trade agreement among countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. But there may be some concern about IP protection going beyond existing international trade obligations.
The bill to reform United States patent law recently passed by the Senate purports to bring US law closer to laws of other major patent-filing nations. But how close would it come?
The traditional copyright system’s balance for encouraging yet controlling access to copyrighted works in order to extract value for them has met with a destructive force in the internet that it cannot overcome without changing itself, the head of the World Intellectual Property Organization said recently in a landmark speech. And he proposed several elements for the way forward.
The head of the Brazilian intellectual property office was recently removed by the new Culture minister, replaced by an official who has some wondering if a swing toward stronger copyright protection is in the works for the government.
In a flurry of patent-related developments in Europe this week, plans for a single European patent moved a step closer, efforts to create a European-wide patent court faltered, the United Kingdom sought guidance in a case with implications for medicinal research, and the EU high court may be asked to review the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
The use of arbitration across the Caribbean has been largely within the context of trade union disputes and is still something of a novelty in resolving commercial and private disputes in the region, Abiola Inniss writes.
In a significant development for ongoing copyright negotiations at the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Blind Union has distanced itself from initiatives it sees as distractions from a primary goal at the international level: To get agreement on a treaty promoting better access to reading material for visually impaired readers.