Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The United States Copyright Office has issued a reminder to all online service providers and agents that they must renew their registration with the office by end of year in order to claim liability limitations from copyright infringing content.
The UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) today released its annual report on the global information society, this year providing detailed analysis of the transformational "revolution" underway involving the Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. It also ranked countries by their level of ICT development. Hint: the Western Hemisphere did not fare so well.
WASHINGTON – Today, over seventy international copyright law experts called for NAFTA and other trade negotiators to support a set of balanced copyright principles. The experts urge trade negotiators to support policies like fair use, safe harbor provisions, and other exceptions and limitations that permit and encourage access to knowledge, flourishing creativity, and innovation. Signatories include preeminent intellectual property professors and experts from law schools, think tanks, and public interest organizations in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, as well as Argentina, Australia, China, Ireland, and Switzerland.
A case at the High Court in India set for 15 December could decide whether a patent on some of the most important drugs to fight hepatitis C should be removed. It is one of many attempts to challenge patents on hepatitis C drugs in various countries around the world and serves as an opportunity to learn more about the group leading the legal case.
Nobody among members of the World Intellectual Property Organization disputes the importance of the public services provided by libraries and archives. However, positions are different when it comes to providing exceptions to copyright to those entities so they can continue to dispense their services, in particular in the digital age. An updated study presented today in a WIPO committee shows that most countries have exceptions relating to libraries, but termed in very different ways, and are hesitant on how to deal with digital technologies.
Trade ministers negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) without the United States have dropped many problematic provisions related to intellectual property and health, Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) reported today. Also removed from the agreement appears to be the investor-state dispute settlement provisions, according to a source.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today issued changes to some patent fees, including increases in certain areas, including the cost of using the inter partes review process. Following feedback from users, the office went with some proposed increases, while keeping others at existing levels despite proposals to increase them, it said.
The Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria today selected Peter Sands, a former bank CEO who is involved in health projects at the World Bank and elsewhere, as its next executive director.
Members of a US congressional subcommittee on intellectual property held a hearing last week that appeared aimed at finding ways to stop companies from “renting” the sovereignty of Native American tribes in order to avoid a process that can lead to the invalidation of patents. Elected officials called a deal between Allergan pharmaceutical company and a northeastern tribe a “sham” and a “mockery”, and signalled the start of the legislative procedure to prevent such deals.
Days after withdrawing from consideration to be the next director of the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the UK's Peter Sands has asked to be reinstated. The actions come as the Fund's Board gathers this week to choose among the final candidates for head of the international health funding organisation based in Geneva.