Original news and analysis on international IP policy
A United States congressional representative has posted the text of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to the internet and is calling for public comments out of the fear that the agreement will harm the open internet.
The number of cybersquatting cases filed with the arbitration body of the World Intellectual Property Organization reached a record high in 2011 with 2,764 cases filed by trademark owners, the UN agency reported today. WIPO also expressed alarm over the potential impact on cybersquatting of a move underway to add more generic domain names to the internet.
Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, today called for public data to be opened up for all to use, somewhat akin to providing the free oil of the digital age.
There will be more than 50 important meetings talking internet in 2012, and activists and government alike have started calling for streamlining or better cooperation and focus. Yet what might make 2012 a very notable year with regard to the politics of the net is not these meetings, but the rising storms blowing over the net regarding day to day internet politics. The preliminary stop of the un-beloved SOPA/PIPA legislation in the United States and the unexpected hesitation of Europe to sign the controversial ACTA agreement gave a first taste of a hot year in internet governance.
The controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement consumed hours of European Parliament time this week as the European Commission sought to persuade lawmakers to approve it. But no matter how often EC officials, academics and lawyers said the treaty will not change EU law, scepticism still remains about its potential impact on digital freedoms and access to generic medicines in developing countries – including from the Parliament member who will author the legislative report.
With tension seeming to brim just beneath the surface, human rights officials from around the world came together today at the United Nations in Geneva to talk about ways to keep the internet open and nationally regulated at the same time. There were no decisions, and wide differences in views, but the first-of-its-kind panel might have laid the ground for future work on internet freedom and human rights. Intellectual property rights were mentioned several times.
It was obviously a moment of some embarrassment for the US Department of Commerce and the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
Europeans came out by the thousands this week to protest the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), as it goes before the parliament and the remaining governments that have not yet signed on. But a large number of industry associations sent a letter pushing officials to carefully consider the agreement before dismissing it under popular pressure.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has embarked on a programme of allowing new generic top-level domains on the internet (like .com), an initiative that has worried trademark holders and international organisations. Now the World Intellectual Property Organization Arbitration and Mediation Center is offering services for trademark holders who wish to challenge proposals for new gTLDs later this year.
The major US copyright industries today issued a list they said “documents rampant online and physical piracy of copyrighted works and severe market access barriers.” Public interest groups will be watching closely to see if the list submitted to the US government is incorporated wholesale into a package of government assertions of inadequate protection of US intellectual property rights by trading partners.