Original news and analysis on international IP policy
World Intellectual Property Organization members this morning held a first round of voting for the director general candidate to lead the UN organisation for the next six years. The top three candidates, from Australia, Nigeria and Panama, will advance to the second round to be held this afternoon.
After two-and-a-half days of non-stop information sharing on ways to build respect for intellectual property and enforce IP rights, members of the World Intellectual Property Organization could not agree on the future agenda of the committee on enforcement.
An executive committee of nearly half the World Intellectual Property Organization membership will tomorrow, 6 March, select the leader of the key UN organisation for the next six years. And it is still hard to predict whether the incumbent will return.
New business models for reducing markets for counterfeit and pirated goods were presented by speakers at the WIPO Advisory Committee on Enforcement this week, including voluntary mechanisms and graduated responses. But prices on brand name products was a little-explored issue during the presentations, only underlined as a possible factor of piracy by one developing country delegation.
The South Centre, the Geneva-based intergovernmental organisation of developing countries, yesterday issued a statement calling on World Trade Organization members to oppose United States pressure against developing countries, and India in particular, over their intellectual property laws.
Raising awareness on the value of intellectual property and preventive actions to fight counterfeiting particularly among younger users was among the strategies presented by speakers at the World Intellectual Property Organization committee on enforcement of IP rights this week.
This week, some World Intellectual Property Organization member states are presenting their national and regional practices and strategies to prevent purchases of counterfeit or pirated goods with the aim to promote the underreported hard work of states in this area.
A growing number of countries are signing the new World Intellectual Property Organization treaty on copyright exceptions aimed at boosting access to special format books for visually impaired persons. Parallel to the treaty and pre-dating it, a WIPO-led initiative of interested stakeholders is continuing its efforts to also boost access to such works, including through licence agreements.
The Snowden revelations have spurred yet another discussion on how to internationalise or globalise the oversight over the management of core infrastructures of the internet, namely the so-called IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) functions. Why not let the private sector decide?
World Intellectual Property Organization members this week are meeting to discuss efforts to better protect intellectual property rights worldwide, including some new proposals for discussion and an exhibition on national programmes.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation held what was supposed to be its last meeting in Geneva on 24-28 February. However, as explained below, the group failed to agree certain key issues, so it agreed to meet again on 7-9 May. Richard Hill offers an explanation.
During a visit to France last week, Fadi Chehadé, the CEO and president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), announced that his Board of Directors has given him the green light to further explore reforms of ICANN. Among them is the possibility of creating a parallel ICANN international structure, likely based in Geneva.