Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Several United States-based advertising networks today announced a set of best practices to address online infringement by reducing ad revenue to websites engaged in piracy and counterfeiting.
In one of the first decisions on an objection filed at the World Intellectual Property Organization against a new top level domain (TLD) application, the complainant, Express, LLC lost to Sea Sunset, a subsidiary of Donuts. Express is a US fashion dealer, and Donuts is one of the so-called “portfolio TLD applicants” that has applied for nearly 300 new TLDs.
World Intellectual Property Organization members are nearing conclusion of negotiations for an international instrument or instruments on issues critical to indigenous peoples, such as protection of traditional indigenous knowledge, practices and genetic resources. But the WIPO membership as a whole has been miserly when it comes to funding indigenous peoples’ participation in the process, and now many are in danger of being left out of the process.
The World Intellectual Property Organization’s proposed programme and budget for the next biennium faced some tough questioning from the UN agency’s member states last week. Meanwhile, WIPO is anticipating a series of treaty negotiations in the next two years.
During the first round of negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investement Partnership (TTIP), negotiators met with 350 stakeholders, briefed 260 stakeholders, published several press releases and invited an hour-long press conference.
In the run-up to next week’s meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a lobby group promoting the recognition and the protection of geographical indications has sent a letter to ICANN requesting that better consideration be given to GI owners' rights under ICANN’s programme of new domain names.
The Swiss Privacy Foundation (Digitale Gesellschaft) is pushing for legal charges to be pressed against foreign intelligence services violating Swiss law following the revelations of former National Security Agency (NSA) employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden. At the same time, a US judge ruled today that a case against the NSA by the Electronic Frontier Foundation can proceed. And the European Union raised the issue in Washington this week, while Brazil has opened an investigation of US spying in that country.
The UN World Intellectual Property Organization is proposing to open five new regional offices around the world next year, with more envisioned in the future. In a move it says is in response to requests from its members, WIPO aims to open offices in China, Russia, the United States and two in unnamed African countries. And doing so will help defend the global intellectual property system from cyber attacks by the likes of Anonymous, it says.
Innovation is a main focus of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) substantive session taking place in Geneva this week. Today, at the ECOSOC opening session, the 2013 Global Innovation Index (GII) was launched, which ranked Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States as the top five most innovative countries in the world.
The annual four-week session of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), a key coordinating body responsible for 70 per cent of spending across the UN system, opens next week with high-level political figures addressing intellectual property rights and innovation.
The Internet Society (ISOC) today announced the names of 32 individuals who have made significant contributions to the web for induction into the 2013 Internet Hall of Fame.
Lisbon, Portugal - The surveillance affair around the US Prism programme left its mark on the 2013 European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) in Lisbon last week. Legal experts at the sixth edition of the European version of the Internet Governance Forum pondered possible legal reactions, companies revealed as targets or (unwilling) partners of the programme tried to limit the damage, while Swedish ambassador Olaf Ehrenkrona admitted that state surveillance programs need to be reconsidered given the ease of mass surveillance in the era of a public internet space.