Category Patents/Designs/Trade Secrets

USTR Plans Another Year Of Elevating IP Protection With Trading Partners

By Liza Porteus Viana for Intellectual Property Watch The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) last week delivered to Congress its 2008 National Trade Estimate Report (NTE), which includes many intellectual property-related challenges in 62 trading partners around…

L’industrie perd confiance en l’OMPI – débats autour du contentieux États-Unis/Chine à l’OMC

Liza Porteus Viana pour Intellectual Property Watch NEW YORK – L’Organisation mondiale de la propriété intellectuelle (OMPI) semble être en plein tumulte. En effet, cette dernière est actuellement en quête d’un nouveau Directeur général et se débat avec les questions…

Office Open XML Officially Approved As International Standard

By Kaitlin Mara The much-debated open document standard Office Open XML (OOXML) has been approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), according to a document obtained by Intellectual Property Watch. The result of the voting showed 24 supporting votes…

New National-Level Programmes Echo WIPO Patent Treaty

By Liza Porteus Viana for Intellectual Property Watch
NEW YORK - The Japanese Patent Office in April will introduce a new policy called JP-First, which aims to release patent examination results of applications first filed with the JPO to major patent offices throughout the world, including in some developing countries. The initiative and others could be steps toward allowing patent filers to bypass an established international treaty on patents, sources said. Also at the event, government officials and academics also discussed copyright developments in Canada. US experts argued that Canada is not doing its part to crack down on piracy, while the Canadians said they are actually setting the bar in some areas in terms of protecting copyrighted works.