Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Intellectual property rights are a key to innovation, the mitigation of climate change, an incentive to spur the economy and a creator of jobs, according to participants in several recent industry events and activities.
A mere “affirmation of commitments” (AoC) between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the United States Department of Commerce has replaced the decade-old joint project agreement in place in different forms since ICANN started technical coordination of names and numbers on the net in 1998.
When Amazon.com remotely deleted George Orwell’s “1984" and “Animal Farm” from its Kindle e-books, it stirred up a hornet’s nest of complaints about privacy, the potential erosion of copyright users’ rights and censorship. Is the shift to “tethered devices” a real cause for concern or much ado about nothing?
With a day to go before the joint project agreement between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the United States Department of Commerce (DoC) is set to expire, calls for continuous US oversight role have been reiterated by US politicians and private-sector representatives who reason that this oversight is especially needed in the face of the planned introduction of new internet top-level domains like .shop.
As the United States is moving to ensure that internet (net) neutrality is preserved in that country, some are hoping other regions of the world will take notice, particularly the European Union.
Improved searches and application quality and a focus on backlog reduction are necessary to improve the patent system, patent authorities concluded at a World Intellectual Property Organization symposium last week. This will require patent offices around the world to work together, and the WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty, most speakers said, is the path forward for global patent coordination.
Google’s court settlement in the United States that could allow the search engine giant to sell scanned books online is increasingly coming under fire prior to the final hearing in the matter next month. Government entities and groups in the United States and in Europe that oppose the settlement could, at the very least, temporarily derail Google Book Search, according to sources.
Stakeholders gathered this week to discuss a European approach to the governance of the internet in the lead-up to the next global forum on the issue.
The second European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) took place in Geneva on 14-15 September and brought together some 200 representatives.
The way the patent system is currently structured rewards slowness and low quality, but the needed changes will have to include a new revenue model, a top European patent official said today.
The World Intellectual Property Organization this week may have witnessed the beginnings of a resumption of high-level negotiations on an international treaty on the protection of audiovisual performances.