Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The European Parliament during its last plenary meeting before the summer break today adopted a non-legislative report on copyright reform prepared by Pirate Party Member Julia Reda. The report calls for an adaptation of the EU 2001 Copyright Directive to the digital market.
A new paper released earlier this month finds that the commons perspective, which embraces knowledge as a shared resource and its management a joint responsibility, could contribute to EU policy discussions and yield better policy outcomes in areas such as health, environment, science and culture, and the internet.
The European Parliament today voted in favour of its own mandate for the negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a broad free trade agreement between its 28 member states and the United States. With 436 yes versus 241 no votes (32 abstentions), the Parliament adopted a resolution that also gives green light to the hotly debated investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), albeit a new version of it.
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.
At a hearing on data flows and data protection in trade agreements this week, several members of the European Parliament called for the clear exemption of current and future data protection regulation from ongoing trade negotiations.
A collaboration between the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and leading information and telecommunications technology companies has entered a new phase in dealing with challenges in IT infrastructures. This new phase also marks the inclusion of public research organisations in the collaboration. Separately, the program director discussed the role of intellectual property rights at the lab.
In the landmark case of Delfi v. Estonia, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights today decided that news portals could be held liable for clearly unlawful content in third party postings.
In voting that took over an hour due to the more than 550 amendments proposed, the European Parliament Legal Affairs (JURI) Committee Tuesday adopted an own-initiative report by German MEP Julia Reda of the Greens/European Free Alliance intended to make sweeping changes to EU copyright law. The report is expected to feed into the European Commission's (EC's) copyright reform proposal expected later this year. JURI also backed draft rules on legal redress for theft and misuse of business trade secrets, but said they must in turn respect freedom of information and expression and safeguard whistle-blowers.
European Patent Office President Benoît Batistelli, in an exchange with the Legal Affairs Committee (Juri) of the European Parliament today (15 June), recommended against including harmonisation of patent policy in bilateral negotiations like the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). He also defended his office's actions on heated staff matters. But he did not address a breaking allegation of EPO surveillance of computers in its building.
A story in the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung says, according to an unofficial translation, that it has obtained an internal report that shows the European Patent Office (EPO) tapped two general use computers it had identified as a source for leaked information. The news comes on the eve of a meeting of the EPO president with the European Parliament.
With European Commission proposals for copyright reform expected later this year, EU lawmakers, rights-holders and digital rights activists are pushing for major policy shifts. European Parliament resolutions approved on 9 June call for stronger intellectual property protections in non-EU countries, and better internal enforcement against online breaches. A controversial draft report seeking more harmonisation of EU copyright measures has attracted around 600 proposed amendments and will be voted on 16 June. Meanwhile, the Council said it reached agreement with Parliament on changes to EU trademark law.
After a tumultuous early morning session today in Strasbourg, a slim majority of 183 (against 181) members of the European Parliament decided to postpone mere debate of the Parliament's report on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The vote on the report prepared by Bernd Lange, head of the International Trade Committee (S&D), had already been postponed yesterday by the President of the Parliament, Martin Schulz.