Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The European Union Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science today introduced the US policy community to Horizon 2020, the large-scale new multi-year research and innovation funding programme the EU is preparing to undertake.
In an unprecedented action suggesting intellectual property rights have bumped up against an access threshold, thousands of websites have gone "dark" today in protest against two draft anti-piracy and counterfeiting bills in the US Congress that the protestors say would harm freedoms online. The protest includes major technology firms like Google, Mozilla, Wikipedia, Flickr, Reddit, Vimeo and WordPress.
As of today, no one is really sure what the future holds for the controversial internet anti-piracy bills in the United States.
Despite the economic situation, the European Patent Office saw record patent filings in 2011 and maintained its share globally, it reported today.
The UN World Health Organization Executive Board opened its annual January meeting today with a substantive agenda of reform, election, and a variety of issues that touch on intellectual property rights, research and development and innovation. And with the organization in reform and funding straits in a rapidly changing world, the director general stressed the agency’s steadfast approach and role in addressing the increasing global inequality between rich and poor.
Among Denmark's many priorities for its six-month presidency of the European Union which started this month are advancing intellectual property rights, international trade, research and innovation. IP issues include a unitary EU patent, trademark rules modernisation, and orphan works legislation.
US President Obama today announced a proposal to combine six government agencies working in areas of international trade and economics, aimed at boosting efficiency. This includes the Commerce Department, which currently houses the US Patent and Trademark Office, and it appears it would affect the USPTO.
This year could bring major changes in US intellectual property law. Congress and the nation’s courts will be confronting a variety of issues that have broad ramifications for copyrights, trademarks and patents. Here are some of the top developments to watch in 2012.
In a move public health advocates say is likely to bring negative consequences for low-income patients with HIV and AIDS, as well as negative publicity for the company, Johnson & Johnson recently announced that it would not enter into negotiations with the Medicines Patent Pool for voluntary licences that would allow several of key treatments to be made in more affordable generic form in developing countries.
The next round of negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement is expected to be held in March in Australia, but secretive intersessional meetings on a variety of topics are being held in the meantime. Meanwhile, the Canadian government is considering joining the TPP talks, and is asking for public comments on the idea by 14 February.
On the eve of the start of the application period for new generic top level domains (gTLDs) on the internet, the chair of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Steve Crocker, described the program as a "major step in the globalisation of the internet." For the first time there will be equal access and an equal invitation to users from all over the world to have generic domain names, Crocker said at the National Press Club in Washington, DC today.
Current global institutional reforms of agricultural innovation systems and the commodification of crop diversity are not answering concerns regarding international equity in access to plant genetic resources, the handling of agricultural research, and the sharing of benefits arising from this research, according to a new book by Claudio Chiarolla, research fellow at the Paris-based Institut du développement durable et des relations internationales (IDDRI).