Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The expansion of internet domain names as proposed is worrying to trademark owners as a significant number cybersquatting cases continue to be filed in the World Intellectual Property Organization dispute resolution system, WIPO said this week. Meanwhile internet intermediaries should play a bigger role in the fight against trademark infringement, WIPO officials said.
Delegates to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity today begin the last formal meeting before a late-2010 deadline to negotiate an agreement ensuring fair and equitable access to and benefits from the world’s scarce biological resources.
Europe will request the publication of the current drafts for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) at the next ACTA negotiating meeting in New Zealand in April, EU trade official Luc Devigne said today.
Speaking at the third EU stakeholder meeting on the hotly debated ACTA today in Brussels, Devigne also said there is also a meeting with civil society planned to take place alongside the New Zealand round.
China on Friday briefed the World Trade Organization on improvements in its intellectual property rights enforcement needed to bring it into compliance with a dispute settlement decision made last year.
Greater emphasis should be placed on intellectual property issues in the European Union’s trade relations with developing countries, a leading employers group has recommended.
International trademark filings plummeted in 2009 but trends should be reversed as the global economy regains strength with signs already showing in 2010, World Intellectual Property Organization’s Director General Francis Gurry said today.
The United States Federal Communications Commission’s newly released plan to expand broadband internet access within the country was well-received from several sides of the digital rights debate, with some questions. Separately, a new cybersecurity bill introduced in the US Congress today includes measures to protect intellectual property rights.
European Union copyright law needs to be amended so that the clearance of copyrights is simplified for online content, the European Broadcasting Union said today. The group presented the results of an analysis it conducted today at the European Parliament in Brussels.
The European Parliament today voted overwhelmingly in favour of a demand to be kept fully informed about the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement under negotiation by the European Commission and about a dozen countries outside Europe. Parliament also opposed controversial provisions such as personal searches at European borders and cutting internet access for anyone found infringing copyright online three times.
The backlog in patent processing could impose £7.6 billion (about USD$11.3 billion) in annual expenses on the global economy within the next five years if nothing is done to fix it, according to a new economics study from the United Kingdom released this morning before directors of several top global intellectual property offices.