Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Last week, the World Intellectual Property Organization treaty which is expected to facilitate access to special format works for blind and visually impaired people gained two more ratifications, bringing the accession to the treaty to 13. The treaty will enter into force three months after the accession of the 20th member.
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.
A United Nations high-level panel of experts has set a process in motion to find solutions to increase access to medicines. Following its first meeting last week, the panel will call for proposals to recommend solutions that can promote innovation, but preserve human rights and public health interests.
The World Intellectual Property Organization is working on an extension to its patent search systems to include specific searches for chemical compounds. The system is expected to be operational by July 2016.
NAIROBI, Kenya- Ahead of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Summit in Nairobi, Kenya’s intellectual property laws are coming under scrutiny over what experts see as their inability to protect economic projects and inspire innovations.
Two and a half years after an international treaty was adopted to facilitate access to special format literary works for blind and visually impaired people, the European Blind Union blames the failure of the European Union to ratify it as a failure to implement the right to read in the EU.
Museums usually gather heterogeneous objects, coming in various forms, and engage in different activities in relation to those objects. With the advance of information technologies, museums have to adapt and consider the digitisation of their collections, which brings copyright questions, according to a study presented yesterday at the World Intellectual Property Organization.
A newly issued report provides the “first ever” picture of global investment in Ebola research and development. The report found that investment in Ebola might have come at the expense of other funding to develop drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for other neglected diseases. The report also found that public funding on research and development for neglected diseases was at its lowest in years.
Two days of informal consultations last week did not bring World Intellectual Property Organization members to agreement on a work programme for the next session of its committee on the law of patents. Developed and developing countries have different views on the work of the committee, with developing countries seeking work on patent on health, and limitations and exceptions to patent rights, while developed countries are more interested in work-sharing between patent offices and protecting the confidentiality of information between patent advisers and their clients.
The habit of patenting innovative products is being challenged by ever faster innovation cycles, the growing need for collaboration and co-invention, and what some classical patentees see as a “virus” of open source licensing. The tenth edition of the IP Summit, hosted in Berlin this year, heard some interesting stories from the smart home and smart car business.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- A law to regulate intellectual property derived from research and development conducted using public funds has boosted the number of patent applications filed and granted by universities and research institutions in the past five years.
The stretch run for Europe's Unitary Patent System (UPS) again took centre stage at the Premier Cercle IP Summit 2015 in Berlin yesterday. Eyes are on Germany for the ratification of the UPS. Cornelia Rudloff-Schäffer, president of the German Patent Office, in the keynote speech assured the 300 hundred participants Germany was preparing for the new system and called out to industry to prepare for the change, saying: “Check your portfolio now.”