Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) will hold a seminar on the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications in Geneva next week.
Several negotiators and other stakeholders participating in last June’s successful negotiation of an international treaty to ease access to reading material for blind and visually impaired people recently gathered in Washington, DC to look back on the remarkable and at-times bitter talks. Months later, not all agree on certain historical details, such as the US position, but all agree it was a significant accomplishment.
Patent assertion entities in the United States have done well from software patents. These companies, which some call “patent trolls,” have garnered a clear majority of their revenues by licensing software patents and suing those who refuse to purchase licences. But these companies’ reliance on software patents may be coming to an end. In recent years, these companies are increasingly exploiting business method patents, and by doing so are targeting a much larger range of businesses, according to a recently released study.
At the end of a two-day conference in Switzerland, open knowledge experts emphasised the role of open data in strengthening science findings’ credibility, fostering medical research and enhancing sustainable development.
The process of opening up data from the public and private sectors has achieved relevant success in recent years, but many challenges are still to be overcome to make data really accessible and usable by the public. These were the main ideas that emerged from a meeting of open knowledge experts in Geneva yesterday.
On the anniversary of the patent reform legislation in the United States, a US service that uses patent pools to help companies fight litigation by patent assertion entities (PAEs or patent trolls) today (17 September) announced an inter-partes review of a patent used widely in litigation by a leading PAE.
La Oficina Nacional de Propiedad Industrial (ONAPI) de la República Dominicana “está trabajando” en una base de datos que facilitaría el acceso a información sobre las solicitudes de patentes presentadas en el país. Actualmente, obtener esa información puede ser costoso y complicado.
Experts from all over the world are gathered this week in Switzerland to discuss open data initiatives, trends and future developments in the context of the 2013 Open Knowledge Conference, an annual event organised by the Open Knowledge Foundation.
The United States government is undertaking substantive review of, and strategy for, its intellectual property system, with an eye toward a major overhaul of aspects such as copyright. And stakeholders are leaping at the opportunity to comment.
The proposed establishment of new World Intellectual Property Organization external offices gave way to a lot of discussion today (11 September) in the WIPO committee overseeing programmes and budget. Other targets of debate: small and medium-sized enterprises, accountability for the WIPO Global Issues Division, implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty on copyright exceptions for the blind, and potential treaty negotiations in the next biennium - all with no decisions yet.
The National Industrial Property Office of the Dominican Republic (ONAPI) is working on a database that would make information about patent applications filed in the country readily available. Currently, obtaining such information can be costly and complicated.
The World Health Organization, the United Nations health agency in persistent financial straits, has announced it must begin charging a fee to manufacturers seeking prequalification of their vaccines and diagnostics. The announcement stirred concern among public health advocates that it might have a negative effect for procurement and access to life-saving medicines.