Original news and analysis on international IP policy
In a ruling expected to rock Europe’s controversial copyright levy system, the European Court of Justice held on 20 October that governments may impose fees on digital reproduction equipment to compensate rights holders only when the devices are likely to be used for private copying.
Europe has promised at the "highest levels" to fix laws that caused generic medicine seizures in the Netherlands, the Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry said today. The minister is in Geneva for meetings on the ongoing Doha Round trade liberalisation talks at the World Trade Organization.
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Everyone you ask this week about the Anti-Counterfeiting Agreement (ACTA) tells you that they’re just about to work their way through the new draft version to understand the implications of changes made during the recent negotiation round in Washington, DC. Massive changes to the text have been revealed by yet another leak of the draft treaty text being negotiated by 10 countries and the EU 27 member states.
European and Indian business not only have privileged access to information on the planned EU-India free trade agreement, they even set the agenda for this negotiation from the start. That is the conclusion of a study by the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and India FDI Watch published this week in Brussels and Delhi. Both organisations intend to appeal directly to the European Commission and the Indian government to stop negotiations as long as there is no access to negotiating positions and documents for all affected parties.
A recent Court of Justice of the European Union opinion in Monsanto Technology LLC v. Cefetra BV et al. may unintentionally inflict serious economic harm on the European biotechnology industry, argue industry attorneys Richard Peet, Vid Mohan-Ram, and Philippe Vlaemminck.
Are counterfeit products first and foremost a threat to human health and safety or is provoking anxiety just a clever way for wealthy nations to create sympathy for increased protection of their intellectual property rights? In Geneva the debate is raging, but a look at a sample of coverage of this issue in the world’s news media shows it can vary greatly.
MUNICH – Some experts in Europe are coming to agreement that a tipping point might have been reached with regard to biological patents. At a conference organised this week by the “no patents on seeds” initiative on the eve of a public hearing of the European Patent Office on cases involving the patenting of broccoli and tomatoes, non-governmental representatives and farmers associations from Europe and elsewhere said there were detectable changes in American jurisprudence and European governments seem to be rethinking the biopatent issue.
Yesterday, the European Court of Justice ruled in a case pitching Monsanto against European importers of Argentinean soy meal, denying the US seed giant intellectual property rights over the exports of soy meal from Argentina to the European Union.
“Exactly a year ago, a very bad decision was taken” by the World Health Organization that now seems “unscientific and irrational,” said Council of Europe parliamentarian Paul Flynn in a late June presentation of a new report on the WHO's actions during the 2009 influenza pandemic.
But opinions heard at an ongoing review of the WHO’s pandemic response were mixed, with some praising the organisation’s work to protect public health and others critiquing what they say is suspicious secrecy.
Quality across patent systems has been understudied but a new methodology put forward by the former chief economist of the European Patent Office suggests that the EPO provides higher quality services than its United States and Japan counterparts. Efforts at collaborative work between patent offices are being made but mutual recognition might not be possible or desirable without some harmonisation in the way the different systems operate.
In the run-up to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup in South Africa, sometimes described as the biggest marketing event in the world, there have been a number of instances where FIFA and local businesses have conflicted over the use of terms to advertise their products.