Original news and analysis on international IP policy
For anyone in Egypt in recent months or years, it was impossible to ignore the extraordinary destitution of masses of people living in dusty, stark cement structures everywhere on the edges of Cairo or the choked roads clogged with a far-too-rapidly swollen population. Reports from the ground via digital technologies chronicled events that hit this week, but it might be the digital silence today that seals the change.
After more than a decade of stalled negotiations, World Trade Organization members have entered into a debate about creating a register for the international protection of wines and spirits with place names.
American lawmakers aren’t wasting any time getting down to business after President Obama stressed the importance of spurring innovation during his annual State of the Union address this week and cited the need for the United States to regain its competitive edge, particularly when up against countries such as China and India. A slew of related bills are emerging in Congress.
CANNES - More help from governments, a hope for new cloud music services and new markets in emerging countries like Brazil. India and China were on the wish list of the big music labels and publishers at this week's annual industry bash in Cannes, France. Technology companies and the newly invited hackers were more concerned with new ways to better access music and connecting artists and fans.
The Executive Board session of the World Health Organization ended early on Monday after a week of discussions that settled some issues but left some others for the next governing meeting of the organisation in May, with much to do until then. The WHO is facing a significant gap in its budget and a programme of reforms is brewing.
The recently completed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is not fully consistent with European Union law and goes beyond international law in some of its aspects, concluded a group of intellectual property law experts from universities in Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Spain.
World Health Organization members yesterday struck a compromise allowing a Swiss industry representative to sit on a committee selecting proposals for research and developing financing for neglected diseases, disregarding the fact that he is author of one of the proposals. Special safeguards were added to prevent undue influence, but questions remain for some about a conflict of interest.
World Health Organization members today raised strong concerns that a working group they mandated last May to address problems with WHO policy on counterfeit and substandard medicines has yet to be formed - with four months remaining before it must report back to members.
One delegation called for a halt to WHO activities on anti-counterfeiting until the outcome of the working group is accepted by member states.
For many experts in internet governance the future of the multi-stakeholder model is the top issue in 2011. The participation of governments, technical experts, industry and civil society in discussions about how best to organise - and regulate - society on the net is at stake.
With the World Health Organization director general’s term of office ending next year, WHO members today set up a drafting group to try to reconcile divergent views on the process leading to the election. Some countries are in favour of a principle of geographical rotation - citing over 60 years of no representation from their regions, while some other countries claimed rotation could override more important selection criteria such as expertise and experience, and could endanger the organisation’s future.
A seemingly overworked and impoverished World Health Organization opened its Executive Board session today with calls for reform amid deep concerns about its financial future. Meanwhile, dissension arose over an industry representative named by the WHO secretariat to a new research and development funding working group, sparking the WHO director general to cast doubt on the role of industry in such groups.
A panoramic view of the IP situation in the Caribbean would present to the observer a carnival of Olympic size replete with politicians, diplomats, rights advocates, consumer groups, law enforcement, and impotent jurists, all gyrating discordantly to the WIPO band while Caribbean citizens look on, or are pulled or shoved in, writes Abiola Inniss.