Original news and analysis on international IP policy
A World Intellectual Property Organization patent landscaping report launched this week shows that although a large number of patents have been granted on technologies aimed to help visually and hearing impaired persons, most of them have not been commercialised yet.
WARSAW - Poland’s Constitutional Court has released a ruling in which it states that the country’s regulation obliging any entity violating other entity’s author’s rights to pay the threefold amount of due payment is excessive, and, as a result, should be amended. The latest ruling will oblige the Polish Parliament to modify the authors’ rights bill in line with the Constitutional Court decision, and decrease the amount of the due compensation.
The World Intellectual Property Organization committee on copyright opened this week with an information panel that underlined that broadcasters in developing countries face more or less the same issues than their counterparts in developed countries. Piracy remains a shared issue. This week, the committee is expected to breach the gap on differences on a potential treaty to protect broadcasting organisations.
In the quest to find solutions to protect traditional knowledge and genetic resources from misappropriation, some countries have resorted to private databases to be used by patent examiners. Indigenous peoples are wary of the process primarily because they are not sure their knowledge will remain safe in those databases. Speakers at a World Intellectual Property Organization this week discussed the pros and cons of such defensive protection.
Experts at last week’s meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Buenos Aires reached a milestone with a final proposal from the ICANN working group for the transition of internet control away from the United States. But global governance without oversight remains difficult, as the ongoing review of the introduction of new generic top-level domains aptly illustrates.
The World Intellectual Property Organization committee on copyright is meeting next week with an agenda of discussions on a potential international instrument to protect broadcasting organisations’ copyrights, and at the same time exceptions and limitations to copyright for the benefit of libraries, archives, education, research, and persons with disabilities other than sight impairment.
The issue of genetic resources or traditional knowledge that are shared among different countries was discussed at a World Intellectual Property Organization seminar this week. Panellists presented national and regional efforts to protect such resources.
Much will depend on Australian federal judges after a website blocking bill targeting copyright violations was passed by both houses of the Australian legislature this week.
As prospective presidential candidates prepare to plunge voters in the United States into campaign purgatory, it is time for pundits to examine how candidates are branding their political campaigns and crafting their messages to appeal to the electoral audience. With the presidential race beginning to heat up, which candidate will seize the message that resonates most with American voters? And what will that message be?
Keen on maintaining momentum in the discussions on the protection of traditional knowledge and genetic resources, while the normative agenda on the issue is suspended, the World Intellectual Property Organization is holding a seminar on the subject this week.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), part of US President Barack Obama’s promised pivot to Asia, has stirred up a hornet’s nest on the ethics of trying to hammer out a trade deal in secrecy. But it is not the only one. A proposed trade agreement in Asia, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), is facing the same hiccups and flak.
Internet expert groups this week are being asked if they agree to a proposal prepared in thousands of hours of voluntary work to transition key elements of internet control away from the United States government. Meanwhile, the US confirmed that the process of transition will extend well beyond the target of September of this year, and some countries are deploring that the transition was not started with a “clean slate.”