Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The new book, “The ACTA and the Plurilateral Enforcement Agenda,” offers an insightful read on the highly debated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), an effort to raise intellectual property protection that was met with opposition by many countries and was subject to intense scrutiny from non-state actors, including industry, civil society and academics.
European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem today defended the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement panels in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), but offered several amendments for consideration.
WARSAW - In a move towards increased regional cooperation in the field of intellectual property, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have signed an agreement to set up the Visegrad Patent Institute (VPI). And representatives of the parties to the agreement say that their ambitions reach further, towards ensuring the recently-established body becomes a regional hub for patent cooperation in Central-Eastern Europe.
World Intellectual Property Organization member governments are meeting this week to try to advance a proposal to convene a high-level negotiation for a procedural treaty on industrial designs. They also are discussing how geographical indications should be addressed in the committee on trademarks, industrial designs and geographical indications.
Intellectual Property Watch offers a partial list of the government delegates in Geneva with responsibility for intellectual property issues at the United Nations and World Trade Organization. The newly updated list is now available, exclusively for subscribers. [Note: IP-Watch content is free to most developing countries, just register online here]
On 5 March, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) in collaboration with Oxford University’s Global Economic Governance Programme (GEG) hosted an event in Geneva to discuss challenges and issues in intellectual property governance.
There was quite some controversy at the 3-4 March 2015 UNESCO Connecting the Dots Conference regarding whether or not the term “democracy” should be included in the conference’s outcome statement to make it clear that internet governance must be democratic.
Efforts to revamp protection for and enforcement of intellectual property rights in non-EU countries are welcome, but the European Commission should get Europe's IPR house in order first, a new draft report by the European Parliament International Trade (INTA) Committee says. Meanwhile, internal IPR reform is advancing on several fronts, said the EC, which gave Intellectual Property Watch an update on the various measures.
United States trade negotiators are seeking to set a "new regional standard" against intellectual property infringement in the Pacific region with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. And among the new tools it is seeking is to boost governments' ability to criminalise IP infringement based on government information as well as that of rights holders, a US trade official said this week.
A lot has happened among the global intellectual property community over the past months. Beyond the usual shifts in law offices, many key positions have either changed hands or been filled. For example, the European commissioners changed, and the United States nominated a new "piracy czar" and a new head of the US Patent and Trademark Office. The International Telecommunication Union, UNITAID and other organisations have new heads. And the World Intellectual Property Organization has a new top management team.
Non-governmental organisations and the private sector also saw a lot of movement in recent months, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, the International Trademark Association, the International Publishers Association, and the Motion Picture Association of America.
In this article, we take the opportunity to catch up. Here is a look at some of the changes.
After a report by the Register's Kieren McCarthy on a postponement of the inaugural meeting of the NetMundial Initiative (NMI) Council discussions were revived over the need for the new body in several mailing lists.
The fifth annual Office of the United States Trade Representative review of “notorious” intellectual property infringing markets has been released, pointing out the world’s biggest problem commercial-scale markets. And for the first time, the report takes aim at internet domain name registrars.