Original news and analysis on international IP policy
L’Accord commercial anti-contrefaçon (ACAC), objet de négociations secrètes, est aujourd’hui au centre des débats internationaux sur le droit d’auteur. Tel est aussi le cas d’un potentiel nouveau traité international sur l’accès pour les déficients visuels aux livres en ligne, qui…
Biotechnology lies at the intersection of a wide spectrum of fields, such as agriculture, health and environment. Because biotechnology relates to life sciences, it is often the subject of ethical, sometimes intense political debates between stakeholders, in particular involving intellectual property rights. In 2010, as the first signs of global economic recovery are emerging, the debates are expected to increase.
The Intellectual Property Watch Monthly Edition features top news on international IP policymaking, the latest on who is coming and going in the international IP community, news briefs and more. The February edition is now available for subscribers at: http://www.ip-watch.org/user/newsletter.
International patent filings under the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Patent Cooperation Treaty fell for the first time in three decades in 2009, owing to a deep economic downturn, WIPO officials said today. Overall patent filings fell 4.5 percent in 2009, but industrialised nations were particularly hard-hit, and are also expected to have slower growth rates in 2010 than emerging economies.
The United States Department of Justice yesterday told the US District Court for the Southern District of New York that progress had been made on its concerns in the settlement allowing internet search giant Google to scan millions of books into a database. But the government lawyers continue to have doubts on copyright, class certification and antitrust issues, they said.
An extraordinary session of the European Patent Organisation Administrative Council intended to help elect a replacement for outgoing president Alison Brimelow today was again unable to come to a conclusion between the three remaining candidates for the post. There will…
BRUXELLES – Les accords de commerce ne doivent pas contenir de clauses relatives aux droits de propriété intellectuelle susceptibles de remettre en cause l’accès des pays pauvres aux médicaments à des prix abordables, a déclaré un député chevronné du Parlement européen.
The fourth Access to Knowledge conference (A2K4) hosted by the Yale Law School Information Society Project in New Haven, Connecticut (US) will take place on 11-13 February. The event will be streamed live on video here, and will focus on…
The secretly negotiated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is now in centre stage in the global debates around copyright, as is a prospective new international treaty on access to online books for the visually impaired which comes as part of a broader push to clarify limitations and exceptions to copyright. But some are asking, why all the debate and new efforts in national and international copyright legislation when copyright is increasing being exchanged for contractual relationships?
The European Patent Organisation will hold an extraordinary session this week in Munich to try once again to find a replacement for current President Alison Brimelow. At meetings in October and December 2009, none of the then four applicants (IPW,…
No agreement could be reached at last week’s meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization committee on patents, a sign of still-deep rifts in what countries want from the global patent system.
A key committee focused on patent law at the World Intellectual Property Organization in seeking to establish its new work programme last week discussed a proposal to better protect the confidentiality of information passed between patent advisers and their clients. But the meeting ended in no decision, and the issue is expected to come up again when the patent committee next meets in October 2010.