Original news and analysis on international IP policy
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 December/January edition is now available for subscribers at: http://www.ip-watch.org/user/newsletter.
Two sides of the ongoing struggle to balance stronger copyright protection and access to knowledge in the United States are re-arming themselves for battle in 2011. By the looks of it, it could be a litigious New Year.
Strategies may be failing to ensure developing countries’ implementation of global trade rules for intellectual property protection does not squelch access to affordable medicines worldwide, according to a study presented this week.
The rapid pace of technology and dramatic shifts in the global economy will bring change to the multilateral structure set up after the Second World War, and these changes will affect the intellectual property system, World Intellectual Property Organization Director General Francis Gurry said this week.
As delegates in Cancun, Mexico, neared the end of their search this week for consensus on how to stop climate change, intellectual property issues were being set aside for later.
The most recent outbreak of pandemic influenza was mild, but the World Health Organization is still working on a plan of what to do should another, more severe outbreak ever occur. States will come together this month in another attempt to finalise this plan.
The global patent system is intended to promote innovation and increase growth, but this might not always be the case, as it might only serve industries relying heavily on patents in advanced economies, according to a study on patents and manufacturing industries presented at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week.
The end of the year is bringing many changes in intellectual property-related policy offices in Geneva and the capitals. Some of these changes include top offices at the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Health Organization, South African government, United States government, and a global internet body. Intellectual Property Watch Subscribers can read the details here.
As the end of 2010 nears, bringing with it the end of the otherwise unremarkable international year of biodiversity, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity is calling for countries to ratify the newly agreed protocol on biodiversity access and benefit sharing as soon as it opens for signature in February.
What do the fearsome leader of France’s three-strikes agency, a top Microsoft counsel, Google’s copyright counsel, a free software activist, Egyptian and British librarians, a South American development-oriented academic, and a European music authors’ representative have in common? While one might be tempted to say, ‘very little’, a recent gathering showed one thing - they represent the very wide range of current views on the future of copyright licensing.