Original news and analysis on international IP policy
WASHINGTON, DC - American intellectual property attachés serving abroad have helped propel global discussions on intellectual property rights and have helped protect inventors’ rights amidst a “global flat economy,” but enforcement remains a difficult challenge in many parts of the world, attachés said at a recent event gathering them back home. The officials highlighted strategies for the coming year in the top emerging economies.
Despite the low-key role of intellectual property rights issues at this week’s World Trade Organization ministerial, there is plenty to think about for the IP community.
Taiwan may become the first new country to join the ranks of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes today presented details on the No-Disconnect strategy of the EU which aims to support human rights activists and freedom fighters in authoritarian regimes.
Self-regulation and its potential pitfalls when it comes to circumvention of due process by pushing enforcement to intermediaries was the subject of a seminar held in Brussels today (7 December).
A “clatch” is another word for “brood”, which is a not inappropriate word in the present circumstances – considering that Canada’s highest court will hear five (yes, five!) cases on December 6 and 7, 2011 that all emanate from Canada’s Copyright Board, writes Howard Knopf.
Leading debates surrounding global efforts to stop counterfeiting and piracy of intellectual property rights-protected goods and services came into full view at the recent meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization enforcement committee. In that debate, a long list of civil society groups has raised concern about WIPO enforcement activities.
The Philippines Justice Secretary has issued an opinion that an agency cannot issue an injunction against an alleged counterfeiter as the complainant must be an actual party with an interest in the case.
In what is seen by many as a landmark decision, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg on Thursday ruled that an injunction obliging an internet service provider to install a filtering system to prevent peer-to-peer copyright violations on its network would violate European law.
The United States and China made notable progress on a range of intellectual property policy issues in cabinet-level meetings ending today, according to the US government.
It has been 10 years since the World Trade Organization adopted the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health. The declaration highlighting the public health aspects of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreed at the 2001 WTO ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar was considered a milestone in ensuring greater access to medicines for all.
With protests against draft US legislation like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act ongoing and the European Parliament voting on 17 November for a resolution to request that the United States should be “refraining from unilateral measures to revoke IP addresses or domain names,” politicians are talking a lot about technology for the internet domain name system. But at the same time, engineers are getting more political and are intensively discussing technology providing the tools for blocking - by governments and private parties.