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WTO Ministerial: Challenging Start Despite Latin American Declaration For Multilateral Trade System

According to delegates speaking at the first plenary of the 11th Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization in Buenos Aires today, member states face the risk of leaving with no joint agreement at all. For the much-debated e-commerce file for example there are eight different and irreconcilable proposals, the South African Ambassador Xavier Charm, chairman of the General Council, reported during the Welcome Session Sunday evening.

WIPO Committee On Development and IP Agrees On Future Work, Keeps Several Issues Open

The World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and Intellectual Property in its latest meeting agreed on a list of items to be discussed at its next session. No consensus was found on a potential biennial conference on IP and development, but discussions are set to continue. The committee also agreed to a suggestion to invite the team conducting an independent review on the implementation of the Development Agenda Recommendations to further explain some of their own recommendations.

Special Feature: 5G And Standard Essential Patents In The US

NEW YORK -- A panel at the recent IP Dealmakers Forum including a US Federal Trade Commission official, a former US judge on a key patent case, and a telecommunications industry licensing expert walked through issues and prospects for the coming of the 5G next generation wireless technology. Views differed on points but panellists agreed that changes are needed to the system for standard-essential patents, including a bigger role for standard-setting organisations. Below is an in-depth account of the discussion. The discussion also included the latest state-of-play at the FTC, which currently has its lowest number of commissioners ever.

Copyright Skirmishes From The European Snippet War

A new European Union ancillary copyright provision for news publishers will help them against news aggregators and platform providers, promised proponents and two panellists favouring the addition of the EU Copyright Reform at a workshop of the Justice Committee (JURI) of the European Parliament in Brussels today (7 December). But it’s a promise that cannot be kept according to a study commissioned by the Parliament and also presented during a feisty discussion at the workshop.

Global Patents Soar Again As China Tops Patent, Trademark, Design Filings

Innovators around the world filed 3.1 million patent applications in 2016, up 8.3 percent in a seventh straight yearly increase, WIPO’s annual World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPI) report shows. The report, WIPO’s annual report, released at the United Nations in Geneva today, showed China topping patent, trademark and design filings in 2016.

Must All Foreigners Online Comply With US Copyright Law? (Part 2 of 2)

A case now before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Spanski Enterprises v. Telewizja Polska, creates a legal dilemma. The court needs to find Telewizja liable for copyright infringement, or else the court will create a roadmap for pirates, enabling them to stream copyrighted works into the US with impunity. But if the court finds Telewizja committed infringement simply because the Polish company put online works that could be accessed in the US, the court will apply US copyright law in an extraterritorial manner that will create problems around the globe.

European Commission Announces Guidance On Copyright Enforcement, SEP Licensing

The European Commission today announced plans to ratchet up the fight against counterfeiting and piracy, and to introduce more clarity in licensing standard-essential patents (SEPs). The first involves guidance on the 2004 EU directive on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRED); the second recommendations for making the relationship between patent owners and technology users more “balanced and efficient.”

Must All Foreigners Online Comply With US Copyright Law? (Part 1 of 2)

US copyright law is supposed to apply only within US borders, not to actions done in Poland. But when a company in Poland streamed copyrighted TV shows into the US, that infringed US copyrights, according to a US trial court. This decision will be upheld on appeal, experts widely expect. Such an appellate decision, however, could expand the reach of US copyright law to a problematic extent. It will be tricky to find infringement in this case without also extending US copyright law to any online content posted anywhere on the globe.