Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The parliaments of Sweden and the European Union are urging the European Union to make public all documentation related to a secretive global anti-counterfeiting treaty, while the United States has claimed the papers are a matter of national security and therefore a state secret. But now the US has decided to undertake a review of its transparency.
The committee of the United States Senate drafting legislation to reform the US patent system made little progress at a meeting Thursday, according to sources, but adopted a bipartisan amendment and scheduled to reconvene next week to continue work.
Addressing the challenge of climate change will require technological solutions and the dissemination of those solutions to as many users as possible. A panel at the World Intellectual Property Organization Tuesday asked how intellectual property law might help or hinder that transfer, and what role the organisation might play in creating the right policy.
Regulatory caution on technology standards and intellectual property rights is increasingly necessary, as technology - and the need for interoperability between platforms - dominates the market economy as well as global communications, said a panel on patents and standards Monday.
Questions on how to best to link patent law and development issues led the opening discussion at this week’s World Intellectual Property Organization meeting on patent law. A WIPO study on exceptions and limitations was discussed Monday and Tuesday, with talk turning towards whether a third party examination of the issue was needed.
A final decision on a World Trade Organization case over intellectual property rights protection between China and the United States was accepted by the states Friday, with both claiming its arbiter had affirmed their positions.
In a trend appearing in other patent offices around the world, patent applications at the European Patent Office continued to rise in 2008, but at a slower rate toward the end of year. At the EPO, this was coupled with the lowest percentage of granted patents in its history.
The committee on patents at the World Intellectual Property Organization is set to be re-energised next week as it tackles four new reports, and addresses an ongoing question of the relationship of patent rights to wider policy issues on climate change and other environmental issues, public health, and food security.
The genetic revolution has come to food, as debates over how to deal with future pressures of population and climate change look to agricultural technology in hope of answers. But questions still remain over who owns the technology, who will do the research, and what forms of - and even whether - biotechnology is appropriate to human needs and the needs of smallholding farmers.
Officials from two lawyerly United Nations agencies met recently to discuss their roles and build cooperation in intellectual property finance, especially in light of the global economic crisis.
The United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office on Monday published a proposal for a “rights agency” that would tackle problems related to digital copyright. The envisioned agency that would be managed and funded by rights owners and take up a two-fold task by facilitating the creation of a digital market and preventing and reducing online piracy.
Bennett Lincoff writes: If Choruss abandons the time-tested approach of licensing and relies instead on covenants not to sue, it will facilitate a brazen money grab by the major labels it represents, leaving songwriters, recording artists and music publishers empty-handed, and college students holding the bag.