Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Today a range of civil society organisations sent an open letter to European Union policymakers calling for the removal of a provision they say would violate citizens' rights by forcing monitoring and filtering of copyrighted materials.
António Campinos of Portugal has been elected to serve as the next president of the European Patent Office (EPO). He will succeed Benoît Battistelli, who has served since 2010.
PARIS -- La Revue Prescrire, a French journal for healthcare professionals, has chosen “Private Patents and Public Health” — a 2016 book written by Ellen ’t Hoen — as one of four winners of its 2017 Prescrire Prize Book Award. Calling it “a major reference work on access to medicines and the patent system,” Prescrire praised ’t Hoen’s book both for its extensive collection of data and examples as well as its readability. (Medicines Law & Policy contributor, Kaitlin Mara was the editor of the book).
Bugs in the European Union copyright reform were discussed during the 6th edition of the annual Warsaw CopyCamp held last week. Liability of platforms and special intellectual property rights on snippets were the poster child for bad legislation. But the activists, academics and internet companies also expressed concerns over a general backlash on internet openness and internet freedom.
In a recent decision, the Opposition Board of the Japan Patent Office dismissed an opposition filed by CFUB Sisley, a French producer of cosmetics and fragrances founded in 1976, against the word mark “SISLOY” written in a standard character. The case shows that the status of European luxury brand will not automatically enjoy broader scope of protection in Japan unless the brand obtains a high degree of popularity and reputation among Japanese consumers, writes Masaki Mikami.
The European Commission today issued guidelines for removing illegal content online, largely following the lines of existing rules and guidance, but hinting at a possible future move to harmonise practices in this area. Technology companies breathed in relief as the communication did not appear to reduce their protection against liability for content carried on their networks and devices, though it did provide extensive clarification on the liability exemption.
The socioeconomic impact driverless cars are expected to have is often compared to that of the internet, or going further back in time, to the industrial revolution. As fleets of vehicles that pilot themselves approach commercial rollout thanks to developments in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and other technologies; original equipment manufacturers are aggressively filing patents for their self-driving vehicle designs. These players include General Motors and its Cruise Automation subsidiary, German automotive supplier Bosch, Ford, which owns a stake in driverless car start-up Argo AI; and Google sister company Waymo.
With a vote in the lead European Parliament committee imminent on European Commission plans to revamp copyright rules, industry stakeholders, digital rights activists and even some EU member states are troubled by various legislative amendments and EU Presidency compromise proposals.
Publicly financed software should be open source, more than 30 signatories of an open letter are proclaiming, calling for others to sign the letter.
To say Brexit is a conundrum is almost a euphemism, the list of issues to settle between the 27 remaining European Union members and the United Kingdom seems bottomless. Intellectual property is no exception, and the European Commission Brexit-dedicated task force has issued a position paper on IP, setting out principles for the “UK’s orderly withdrawal from the EU.”
European research libraries have issued five principles for libraries to use when holding open access negotiations with publishers, seeking to prevent over-charging and promote transparency and sustainable access.
The problem of fake medicines is a big one. But precisely how big? The problem is, when reporting numbers, news stories, reports and institutions have historically bundled the different kinds of medicines together, says an expert at the WHO.