Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The United Nations Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) has issued a substantive analysis of management and administration in the UN World Intellectual Property Organization. And while the report highlights significant progress in a number of areas, it offers a list of ways WIPO can do better – including on transparency and sorting out staff concerns and strengthening member state oversight.
A group of countries has submitted a new proposal to the upcoming meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization budget committee to allow the continued participation of indigenous peoples representatives in WIPO’s committee on traditional knowledge and genetic resources.
The European Commission recently launched a public consultation on the protection of geographical indications for non-agricultural products.
Intellectual Property Watch is pleased to announce a joint internship opportunity with the DiploFoundation/Geneva Internet Platform in Geneva, covering events and issues related to internet governance.
At a recent meeting of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD), a Cuban expert offered a humorous – but at the same time serious – vision of global internet governance. Below are his remarks.
WIPO Lex is a publicly available online database under the World Intellectual Property Organization providing streamlined access to the intellectual property systems of almost 200 jurisdictions. The database now features over 12,000 legal texts, some 600 treaties and is operational in six languages: English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish. Intellectual Property Watch takes a look at this resource.
A recent paper published by the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition criticises a joint study by the European patent and trademark offices as lacking insight about the economic effects of intellectual property.
It has been said among some member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization that the next deputy director general responsible for development should come from the Latin American and Caribbean region. If that is the case, a look at some senior officials in Geneva from the region shows a significant pool of available talent from which to draw.
Since that fateful night in 1998 when former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms slipped a provision on behalf of US rum-maker Bacardi into an appropriations bill blocking a Cuban-French company from using the Havana Club trademark in the US, it was expected the provision would eventually be overturned.
Microsoft, a strong advocate of intellectual property protection, has launched an online IP portal in Kenya with the aim of helping innovators better understand different means of protecting their software and reap the economic benefits of their innovations. The initiative is planned to spread to other African countries.
United Nations experts are underlining the importance of using the term “indigenous peoples” in a UN draft set of sustainable development goals from which they say the term has been deleted.
An Indian pharmaceutical industry group has challenged the United States Trade Representative’s assessment of India’s intellectual property protection regime and suggested that India received more severe treatment than other countries solely on the basis of treatment of patented pharmaceuticals that it says is allowed under international rules.