Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Calls for the international community to promote and strengthen the protection of geographical indications and country names on the internet were made at the first side event of the annual General Assemblies of the World Intellectual Property Organization that ended last week.
Managing a brand and trademark portfolio is a demanding undertaking that can require expert precision to prevent unsavory characters and companies from stealing intellectual property. Tools are needed to help companies better manage their IP assets in a more expedient and comprehensive fashion, writes Mason Cole of Donuts.
A European civil society group defending rights and freedoms in the digital environment awarded Facebook the Belgian Big Brother Awards 2016 yesterday.
This morning at the World Intellectual Property Organization General Assemblies, WIPO Director General Francis Gurry commented on the success of the WIPO Conference on the Global Digital Content Market, which took place in April. But the full video of the keynote speaker, who had sharp words for corporate internet giants and other new technologies, is missing from the archive.
Electronic commerce was a focus of the World Trade Organization Public Forum last week, a nod to its continuing rise in global importance. Several panels looked at how to integrate developing countries and small and medium-size enterprises into the global stream of online trade. Although ecommerce is an opportunity for developing countries, many hurdles remain for them, most obviously the digital divide, speakers said.
“The federal court in Galveston, Texas denied the plaintiffs' application for declaratory and injunctive relief. As of 1 October 2016, the IANA functions contract has expired.” This two-sentence statement from Assistant US Commerce Secretary for Communications and Information and National Telecommunication and Information Administration Administrator Lawrence Strickling ended an era of direct United States oversight over changes to the authoritative root zone of the internet domain name system, and as a contractor for a set of core internet databases.
Now is the time for those who want to bring new voices to the digital trade and general trade debate involving the World Trade Organization, says an adviser to a leading security think tank in Switzerland.
A lot of skepticism about global trade has arisen just at a time when there is the potential to involve large swaths of the population who were previously not able to access the international exchange of commerce.
Industry research on music consumer behaviour has found changes in practices of accessing and listening to music. It has been found that, whilst paid audio streaming services grew, copyright infringement remains a significant problem. Next up? Stream ripping.
The European Court of Justice today ruled that a shop offering Wifi is not liable for copyright infringements on its network but may be forced by rightsholders to require passwords to use the network. [Update: Reactions are being added below]