Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Trade secrets have gained the favour of a growing number of companies, according to speakers at a side event held in the margins of last week’s World Trade Organization intellectual property committee meeting. Organised by the European Union, Japan, and the United States, the side event explored the reasons why companies choose to protect their innovations through trade secrets.
This week at the World Trade Organization intellectual property committee a range of mostly developed countries requested to discuss regional innovation models, and countries presented examples of such models. The committee also addressed the issue of “non-violation” complaints and issues of biodiversity and trade, observers, and e-commerce.
Mark L. Whitaker, a veteran intellectual property trial lawyer and partner in Morrison & Foerster’s Intellectual Property Litigation Practice Group in Washington, DC, has been named president of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA).
The Russian intellectual property industry is on the verge of a new scandal. Following the recent arrest of Sergey Fedotov, head of the Russian Authors’ Society (RAS), Russia’s leading public association for the protection of intellectual property rights, on the charge of multi-million ruble thefts, the Russian police has announced the initiation of criminal proceedings against Maxim Ryabyko, head of the Russian Association for the Protection of Copyright on the Internet (RAPCI).
With a delay of mere days, CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the European Union and Canada, will be signed Sunday in Brussels by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker. This follows two weeks of uncertainty over the deal that includes not only tariff reduction, but also an attempt to harmonise regulation and set up a reformed investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism.
At its second anniversary, the Nagoya Protocol is ushering in an international access and benefit-sharing (ABS) system that may impact the freedom to operate with genetic resources. Those who utilize genetic resources and information should understand the emerging framework and take actions to reduce the risk of patent invalidation, legal liability and reputational harm that may flow from a violation of ABS requirements, writes Bruce S. Manheim.
A gathering at the United Nations in Geneva this week is hearing a litany of views on a prospective legally binding international instrument to regulate within human rights law the activities of transnational corporations and other businesses. The meeting is being webcast live.
On its face, the case is a humdrum, procedural dispute about a patentee’s delay in filing an infringement suit. But if the Supreme Court rules the way most experts expect, the decision will significantly enhance the power of patent trolls and others alleging patent infringement, and it will harm many companies doing business in the US – especially companies in the tech sector. Much hangs in the balance on 1 November, when the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in SCA Hygiene Products AG v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC.
United States Trade Representative Michael Froman and Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman met in Delhi today and discussed various bilateral issues including intellectual property rights. Based on the release from the meeting, it appears much of the IP focus was on tasks for India to do to better protect IP rights.
While US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has published detailed positions on intellectual property, technology transfer and trade, Republican candidate Donald Trump has limited his comments to trade reform and alleged Chinese IP theft. The policy vacuum has left the IP community not only uncertain of Trump's intentions but unable even to find the right people to ask, one IP attorney said. [Note: story updated with a comment about IP made by Trump]
The invitation by the South African Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to intellectual property stakeholders to comment on its recently released IP Consultative Framework has reignited calls for the department to come clean on the status of the national draft IP policy.
Fresh from intense discussions at the World Intellectual Property Organization General Assemblies earlier this month, delegates to a WIPO committee today agreed to hold an information session on geographical indications in the spring, and to further work on industrial designs. However, no further discussions to help break the deadlock on a proposed design law treaty could be arranged this week.