Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The United States Department of Justice yesterday told the US District Court for the Southern District of New York that progress had been made on its concerns in the settlement allowing internet search giant Google to scan millions of books into a database. But the government lawyers continue to have doubts on copyright, class certification and antitrust issues, they said.
The secretly negotiated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is now in centre stage in the global debates around copyright, as is a prospective new international treaty on access to online books for the visually impaired which comes as part of a broader push to clarify limitations and exceptions to copyright. But some are asking, why all the debate and new efforts in national and international copyright legislation when copyright is increasing being exchanged for contractual relationships?
Offering no details - as is their standard - government negotiators for a global anticounterfeiting treaty yesterday declared a commitment to try to find ways to increase transparency and inclusion of public input in the secretive talks. But they stopped short of actually committing to increasing transparency and inclusion.
NEW YORK – The problem of global counterfeiting has not diminished with the new year, experts said here yesterday, and 2010 promises to bring even more rampant intellectual property theft if countries do not do more to stem the problem. Some countries are mobilising to do just that.
With the United States Congress attempting to wrap up healthcare – a move made more difficult after a Republican won a traditionally Democratic US Senate seat in January - issues such as tax increases for the nation’s largest financial institutions, energy reform and others may take centre stage. But that’s not to say there is not some room for intellectual property issues to be considered. Upcoming issues may include patent reform, biologic drugs, internet neutrality, enforcement, and performance rights.
The first public discussion of an expert report on how to finance the often costly process of research and development to create new medicines, vaccines and diagnostics needed by the poor to address diseases that disproportionately effect them began this week at the World Health Organization. There were immediate concerns about the last-minute release of the report’s full text and concerns from several governments that it came up short on critical areas, and it was decided that an informal consultation process will take place over the next few months. Meanwhile, World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan said she has already begun an investigation to find out who leaked drafts of the expert group’s work to an international industry group in December.
The intellectual property system seems to be tight at the seams with a global overload of work for national IP offices and a backlog in patent requests. Further international cooperation and some adjustments are necessary to keep an efficient high quality IP system, according to speakers at a private-sector meeting in Geneva on 14-15 January.
The European Union appears to be preparing for adoption of the "gold standard" of enforcement, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), as intellectual property law expert Annette Kur from the Max Planck Institute of Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law said it is now called.
Google's William Patry discusses copyright myths, misleading metaphors, fear of new technologies and outdated business models in a video interview.
Draft chair's conclusions out today show the World Intellectual Property Organization is poised to make paradigm-shifting breakthroughs to expand access to reading materials for the visually impaired. WIPO members this week also are considering the possibility of high-level negotiations on a new treaty for the protection of audiovisual performances.
La récente décision d’un juge argentin d’abandonner les poursuites engagées contre un professeur de philosophie accusé de violation de droit d’auteur est considérée par les défenseurs de la cause de l’accès aux œuvres comme un nouveau moyen d’attirer l’attention sur les problèmes liés au droit d’auteur en Amérique Latine.
La decisión reciente de un juez argentino de desestimar los cargos presentados contra un profesor de filosofía por supuesta violación de los derechos de autor se considera un paso importante para dirigir la atención hacia los asuntos relativos al derecho de autor en América Latina, según dejaron trascender algunos defensores.