Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, today gave some hints about upcoming regulations intended to ensure competition in cross-border European internet.
The European Court of Justice in a decision dated 30 May ordered Sweden to pay a lump sum of €3 million euros for its delay in transposing the controversial 2006 EU data retention directive into national law in time.
Audiovisual content should be out of scope for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), but protection of European geographical indications is covered and intellectual property issues in general “explored,” European Union governments wrote in their draft negotiation mandate for the Commission, dated 21 May.
The Intellectual Property Exchange International Inc. (IPXI), the world’s first financial exchange that facilitates non-exclusive licensing and trading of IP rights, will start offering a licence contract in June.
The Association for Plant Breeding for the Benefit of Society (APBREBES) announced that its website is now online and its first newsletter has been issued.
Despite increased economic growth over the past decade, Africa will not reach some of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets set forth in 2000 by the United Nations, including halving poverty by 2015, according to a UN report released yesterday.
The International Publishers Association (IPA) has published a paper that raises questions about the quality, sustainability, and public funding of Open Educational Resources (OER).
The European Parliament today voted in favour of a resolution welcoming the start of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). With 460 votes in favour, 105 against – mainly the Green Party Group and the Left - and 28 abstentions, the resolution passed after a heated debate Wednesday night. The majority allowed for the flexibility asked for by EU Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht in the debate but nevertheless requested to “exclude cultural and audiovisual services, including those provided online.”
Infojustice.org reports from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations in Lima, Peru that the intellectual property chapter shows no sign of resolution and the end of the TPP talks in 2013 is now highly unlikely.
While controversies over the role of governments in internet governance could not be avoided at the World Telecom Policy Forum this week, six prepared opinions were all passed with only minor changes. But a Brazilian proposal to "operationalize the role of governments in the multistakeholder framework of internet governance," discussed at some length during the concluding day of the forum, did not find consensus.