Category Information and Communications Technology/ Broadcasting

Year Ahead: Range Of IP Policy Issues May See Action In United States In 2010

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.

WTO Adopts Appellate Body Report On US-China Film Distribution Dispute

China is expected to implement changes that will allow foreign distributors to import audiovisual entertainment products in China without trade being narrowed by state-owned channels after it lost its dispute case against the United States at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The recommendations of the dispute settlement panel and the Appellate Body were adopted today by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body.

IP System Soul-Searching In Face Of Success, System Overload

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.

Internet Governance 2010: Future Of The IGF, Competition Among Institutions

The future design of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the role of the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in internet governance and the ability of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to resolve issues from new generic top-level domains to further internationalisation - these are the top policy issues in internet governance in 2010 and they are all linked to the question about how many governments and how much “multi-stakeholderism“ effective internet governance needs.

Copyright Law Reform in Brazil — Anteprojeto or Anti-project?

A balancing of the rights of authors and consumers, the re-introduction of a private copying exception, a remixing permission and a new regulatory agency for copyright issues are among the core points the Brazilian Ministry of Culture has planned for the new copyright law. But at the Third Conference on Copyright and the Public Interest in São Paulo a month ago, the Ministry emphasised that the bits and pieces shown to the audience were not from an actual law draft ("anteprojeto") but only a preliminary proposal for formulating such a draft. The bill still has not been published to date. The delay in releasing the bill for public consultation now threatens the work of more than two years on the reform.

China’s Standards And Patent Innovation Proposals — Problems For IPR And Global Trade?

Although the Standardization Administration of China is trying to balance the requirements of society, which include the rights of individuals, owners of IP and institutional investors to invest in innovation by earning a reasonable fair return on their patented products with the right of all members of society to benefit from innovation and new technologies; the balance by all accounts has not been made with its recently proposed legislation, writes Dr Ruth Taplin.