Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The Nigerian government has continued to make progress toward new copyright legislation in recent weeks, but efforts appear to have become less transparent, as the results of a public comment period that ended weeks ago have not been made available and the draft copy of the bill is no longer available on the Copyright Commission website.
NEW YORK – At a conference of hundreds of performers and agents in a hotel perched on Times Square this week, panellists told some interesting stories about intellectual property rights and protecting – or failing to protect - creations and performances.
Connected devices talking to each other and to humans could solve major global challenges and be a vector for global development, according to a new report by the UN International Telecommunication Union and Cisco Systems. However, issues remain, such as strategies to protect privacy, and interoperability between devices and systems.
The Marrakesh Treaty, first of its kind, will enter into force three months after the deposit of the instruments of ratification or accession by 20 eligible countries. So far, thirteen have done so. Brazil, which was one of the main proponents and negotiators, deposited its ratification of the treaty on December 11, 2015, after the yearlong internal legislative process. The key question we are trying to face here is how the ratification of this treaty may impact Brazilian copyright legislation and the interpretation of the limitations.
The Council of Europe (CoE), the intergovernmental regional group that includes the European Union, today called on European governments protect the principle of network neutrality at the national level. The member countries adopted guidelines on protecting and promoting the right…
Familiar intellectual property concerns will continue to vex the United States in the coming year. The scope of patent-eligible subject matter, the requirements for safe-harbor protections against copyright infringement, and the registration of disparaging trademarks will be among the top IP issues to watch in 2016, according to experts.
The most-read stories of 2015 on the Intellectual Property Watch website fairly reflected the trends of the year, with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, India’s evolving intellectual property rights policies, European Patent Office patents on conventional vegetables, biologics, 3D printing, and some pop culture issues leading the way.
In the coming weeks, IP-Watch will review in-depth what’s in store for 2016, already underway. But for now, let’s take a look at last year’s highlights.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Zimbabwe has kicked off a new project to support adoption of research data management and sharing services among government, universities and research institutions as part of its plans to pave the way for a nationwide open access mandate. Meanwhile, similar efforts are appearing across Africa.
Copyright exceptions for libraries, archives, educational and research institutions and persons with disabilities other than visual impairment will remain on the agenda of the next session of the World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee. The subject is touchy as developing countries deem those exceptions vital for development and developed countries say that the current global copyright framework leaves enough space for national exceptions to copyright.
Between a lot of applause this week for the first post-WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) decade and especially for the negotiated agreement for the coming 10 years, some cracks appeared. These tell how differently regions still view roles and responsibilities for critical infrastructure management, and also the discrepancy between declaration and deployment of principles of the information society. In a notable statement, Mitchell Baker, chair of the Mozilla Foundation, warned that governments still have to learn how to govern the connected.
Ten years after the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) member states and stakeholders are meeting this week for the WSIS+10 High Level Meeting in the UN headquarters in New York to review a decade of developments in internet governance.
A new standard developed and tested by the Linked Content Coalition's Rights Data Integration project could revolutionise the way copyrights are managed online, one of its technical advisors has said in an interview. The question now is whether organisations are willing to use and pay for it.