Original news and analysis on international IP policy
A World Intellectual Property Organization committee meeting this week to assess the development dimension of WIPO activities heard the progress report of the director general. Developing countries took the opportunity to claim that the mandate of the committee was not completed, in particular because the development dimension was kept out of two important WIPO bodies.
As World Intellectual Property Organization members engage this week in discussions about the extent of change to the UN agency’s development orientation, a new substantive proposal for reform has been put forward based on an external review of WIPO technical assistance.
Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) advises developing countries against signing the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, BMZ official Frank Schmiedchen said during a meeting of the Committee of Petitions of the German Parliament today.
The United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization is by its nature a crossroads of IP technical expertise and global public policy wrangling. But the difference between the two became more pronounced at last week’s meeting of the WIPO Standards Committee, according to participants.
A new draft proposal suggests that World Health Organization members postpone negotiations for a convention on financing of research and development for diseases predominantly afflicting poor populations. The negotiation of a convention is up for discussion by members at the annual World Health Assembly this month.
The heads of the World Intellectual Property Organization and the European Patent Office today signed a three-year agreement to mutually improve the procedural framework of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).
With just over two weeks until the annual UN World Health Assembly begins, member states face a substantive agenda, including a sweeping reform programme, an innovative public health proposal, the global strategy for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases, a mechanism to fight poor quality medicines, and progress in pandemic influenza preparedness.
Eben Moglen, a professor of law and history at Columbia University, made a haunting appeal to participants of the 6th re:publica conference that opened in Berlin this morning: Do not to fail in completing the fight for freedom of thought.
A report released today asserts that trade secret theft is occurring on a massive scale worldwide, and that most companies are not taking sufficient steps to stop it. The report, which comes on the eve of bilateral economic meetings between the United States and China, offers a set of recommended actions for companies and others. Also today, leading Democratic members of Congress urged the Obama administration to demand improvements in China on intellectual property rights protection.
The United States Trade Representative’s office yesterday issued its annual report naming countries that it says are the biggest infringers of US intellectual property rights, among them some of the country’s biggest trading partners. Meanwhile, questions were raised about the close adherence to industry views in the report.
Opponents and proponents of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in the European Parliament have positioned themselves in meetings of several committees preparing opinions.
Once seen as a rising star on the global public health scene, the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is in the throes of a top-down reform as it seeks to tailor its efforts to meet new realities, especially reductions in funding. While the new administration works to improve performance, a confidential document obtained by Intellectual Property Watch shows the terms on which departing staff is being asked to separate from the international organisation.