Category Bilateral/Regional Negotiations

USPTO Seeking IP Attaché In New Delhi

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has attachés around the world specialised in intellectual property issues, including but not limited to enforcement. The office today announced an opening for a new attaché to be located in New Delhi, India, a key post.

Africa Needs To Know What It Can Trade As A Continent, Speaker Says At E-Commerce Week

A number of African countries just joined the newly established African Continental Free Trade Area. However, e-commerce remains very marginal on the continent, which is struggling to keep up and reap the benefits of this booming business platform. During a panel of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development E-Commerce Week, an African entrepreneur gave his vision of what is hindering Africa's e-commerce development, including the lack of awareness of what Africa has to trade.

ASEAN Members Want A Regional Agreement On E-Commerce, Less Developed Members Struggle To Catch Up

A group of Asian countries is working towards a regional agreement on electronic commerce. During the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development e-commerce week, less developed countries of this group explained the difficult catch-up they have to fully enter into e-commerce nationally and internationally, particularly because most of their companies are small. Transport businesses, meanwhile, called for special customs rules for small companies to ease their participation in global e-commerce.

China’s “Theft” Of Foreign Technology Prompts Unlawful US Response, Experts Say

This time Donald Trump was correct: China has, for years, unfairly obtained and exploited American intellectual property and technology. But Trump’s response – imposing $50 billion in tariffs annually on a wide variety of Chinese imports – is problematic, experts warn. The tariffs appear to violate World Trade Organization rules, undermine the international rules-based economic order that has served the West well for decades, and threaten to ignite a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.

Special Feature: Blocking Taiwan From Joining WHO Affects Global Health Security, Officials Say

TAIPEI, Taiwan - Two years after the victory of Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and President Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan is feeling the effects of the DPP's position against the "One China principle." At the World Health Organization, China is allegedly successfully blocking Taiwan from participating in the annual World Health Assembly, and in a number of WHO technical meetings, officials say. Beyond the political dimension of the dissent between China and Taiwan, the situation may hurt the Taiwanese and global health security, Taiwanese officials said.

New TPP Still Most Advanced IP Trade Agreement Ever, Think Tank Says

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is on track to offer "the most advanced and detailed standards on intellectual property in a trade agreement to date" despite revisions scaling back the IP chapter after the United States dropped out, says the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Tough Talk On Transatlantic Privacy, Once Again

The EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Věra Jourová, ahead of her US visit announced “a tough tone” on remaining gaps in the implementation of the privacy shield, the arrangement that allows to transfers of data of EU citizens to the United States. Speaking before the EU Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE), Jourová said while she had heard the privacy shield was not a priority of the US administration, “it will be a priority, if we make clear that we will suspend the system if it doesn't work,” adding, “My patience is coming to an end.”