Tough IP Health Provisions In Europe’s Colombia/Peru Trade Deal
Far-reaching provisions on the patenting of medicine have been inserted into a controversial free trade agreement between the European Union and Colombia and Peru.
Intellectual Property Watch
Original news and analysis on international IP policy
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Conference: Access To Knowledge, Human Rights Can Learn From Each Other
A treaty on copyright exceptions for visually impaired readers, open educational materials, use of the internet without surveillance, and early human rights movements around access to electricity were among issues debated at a recent academic conference on access to knowledge.
US Business Calls For IP Enforcement “Surge”, Seeks New Legislation This Year
The United States’ largest industry association today laid out an aggressive legislative agenda on intellectual property, calling for a dramatic increase in enforcement activities including pumped up customs and border authority.
Contradictory Court Rulings, Continuing Tension On Internet Liability In EU
In its 2010 digital music report, the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said that despite the availability of 400 legitimate online music offerings worldwide and significantly higher 2009 revenues, the music sector remains hard-hit by peer-to-peer and emerging forms of copyright infringement.
WTO Members To Consider Review Of TRIPS Public Health Amendment
A waiver to World Trade Organization rules intended to aid people in poor countries in gaining access to medicines has remained essentially unused in the over six-and-a-half years since it was put in place. On Friday, member states of the WTO will in an informal meeting discuss this situation and see what, if anything, needs be done.
First-Ever Drop In Filings Under Patent Cooperation Treaty Seen In 2009
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.
Google Book Deal Still Needs Work, US Justice Department Says
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.
Breakdown In WIPO Patent Committee Could Symbolise Deeper Differences
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.
ACTA Negotiators Report No Breakthroughs On Transparency
Offering no details - as is their standard - government negotiators for a global anticounterfeiting treaty yesterday declared a commitment to try to find ways to increase transparency and inclusion of public input in the secretive talks. But they stopped short of actually committing to increasing transparency and inclusion.
Panel: Standards Aid Innovation, But Only If Open
Standards are vitally important to innovation but in order for them to serve their purpose effectively, they must be open, said a panel at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week.
ICANN Head Sounds Policy Alarm On Rapidly Shrinking Internet Space
WASHINGTON, DC - The internet’s technical governing body plans to make a push to educate the global users of the internet on the network’s latest generation technology known as IPv6, Rod Beckstrom, president and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), said this week.
Latest WIPO Draft Shows Options For Work Programme On Patents
The latest available text on future work at the World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on the Law of Patents is available from the IP Watch website. The draft emerged this evening.