Original news and analysis on international IP policy
A European Parliament majority this week approved a free trade agreement with Korea with strong provisions on intellectual property rights protection, according to Robert Stury, rapporteur of the lead EP Committee on the dossier.
Determining the value of patented inventions is akin to a guessing game, said a speaker at the World Intellectual Property Organization yesterday. Companies should try to spread their patents over related technological innovations rather focusing on one patent, hoping it will be “the philosopher’s stone”.
Un groupe d’experts en droit de la propriété intellectuelle, issus d’universités allemandes, britanniques, néerlandaises, françaises et espagnoles, a conclu que l’Accord Commercial Relatif à la Contrefaçon (plus connu sous le sigle anglais ACTA) récemment finalisé n’est pas entièrement conforme au droit communautaire et qu’il va au-delà du droit international sur certains aspects.
The European Union is failing to keep pace with key competitor nations and is in need of a radical new, greatly simplified, approach to research and innovation, the European Commission said today. And an element of what is needed is a European-wide patent.
Think tanks can be a godsend for reporters with a looming deadline. Almost invariably, they are staffed with articulate policy specialists, adept at summarising complex issues in a few quotable sentences. Frequently, too, the think tanks have neutral-sounding names, so a reader or viewer of news reports can easily believe that they are independent of vested interests.
Closer inspection reveals that many of these “independent” bodies are in fact heavily reliant on corporate donations. This is especially the case for a number of think tanks working on intellectual property.
The recently completed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is not fully consistent with European Union law and goes beyond international law in some of its aspects, concluded a group of intellectual property law experts from universities in Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Spain.
The Digital Agenda's hoped-for role as a key growth driver for Europe’s flagging economy has pushed intellectual property issues into a high-priority spot on the EU’s policy agenda for 2011. In an effort to boost job creation and innovation, the European Commission is looking to improve online content licensing, access and protection. And despite continuing opposition from several countries, the long-awaited European patent is finally moving forward. Debate is also heating up on new ways to encourage biomedical innovation, and on a proposed EU-India free trade pact.
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The proposed European Union-India free trade agreement was one of the top issues at the 11th EU-India Summit held in Brussels today. But two sides of the story are being told about who will benefit or lose.
Canada's Parliament has the power to save lives of millions afflicted with HIV around the world if they will act to ease intellectual property-related restrictions on their access to medicines, Canadian civil society groups said today.
The end of the year is bringing many changes in intellectual property-related policy offices in Geneva and the capitals. Some of these changes include top offices at the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Health Organization, South African government, United States government, and a global internet body. Intellectual Property Watch Subscribers can read the details here.
The European Commission is considering a proposal in the coming months to create a pan-European passport for collective music licensing intended to overcome stifling difficulties of 27 national collecting societies, a top official has told Intellectual Property Watch in the context of a meeting on copyright and competition.