Original news and analysis on international IP policy
As part of a larger report on the G20 top global economies, the World Trade Organization has provided a discussion of policy developments in trade and intellectual property. This includes a look at international policy actions, recent agreements, and national legislation and trends.
A new analysis released this week by the United States Chamber of Commerce Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC) shows that some 86 percent of all physical counterfeiting comes from China and Hong Kong. Companies locating manufacturing there may not be surprised to find counterfeit versions of their products on the market, and seizures are a small fraction of the goods getting into the global trade stream, the report says.
United States Trade Representative Michael Froman today said biologics remain one of the biggest unresolved issues in getting the Trans-Pacific Partnership passed in the US Congress. He called biologics an intellectual property rights issue and said the administration is working with Congress and industry to resolve concerns without reopening the trade deal completed last autumn.
Movement has been happening in international organisations in recent weeks, particularly in United Nations agencies, as new executive directors were nominated, and department directorships changed hands. The private sector and non-governmental organisations also saw a number of position switches and nominations, in particular in the health sector. Law offices kept pace with the usual chair revolving.
The United States Commerce Department National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced today it found the proposal developed by the global internet multistakeholder community to fully privatise oversight over the central root zone of the internet domain name system (DNS) satisfactory.
Some 800 registered participants gathered for the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) in Brussels today to talk about internet privacy, security and access. Besides the topical issues, the opening sessions speakers came back time and again to the discrepancy of theory and practice of the much-belaboured “multi-stakeholder principle.”
The United States Copyright Office is examining how provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the 1976 Copyright Act are working and whether any changes, legislative or otherwise, are needed. Not surprisingly, there are broad differences of opinion among rights owners, public interest groups, users of copyrighted works and the high-tech community on both questions.
Cultural mindset plays a key role in determining how entrepreneurial a region will be and how effectively its intellectual property will be used, Ludovit Garzik, managing director of the Austrian Council for Research and Technology Development and Innovation Orbit said at an 11 May Oxfirst webinar. The goal is for different cultures to understand how each innovates, leading to global IP, Garzik said.
The government of Rwanda has revised the fees and cost to be paid for the registration of different categories of intellectual property rights. The changes mean lower fees for all types of IP rights, and gives more time to oppose registrations. Rwanda also enacted a law on seeds and plant varieties.
The German Constitutional Court today ruled in favour of the “freedom to sample” - or freedom to remix - in a case between the singer/songwriter Sabrina Setlur and the band Kraftwerk.