Original news and analysis on international IP policy
When it comes to intellectual property rights enforcement, developed country rights owners and their governments continue to puzzle over how to get the rest of the world’s economies to drink from the trough now that they have brought them there. One approach that may regain interest is combining the all-out war on piracy with efforts to build greater trust in the enforcement system.
Farmers’ associations, environmental, aid and development organisations together with anti-patent activists of the free software movement met this week for one of the largest anti-patent rallies in Munich.
Les parlements suédois et de l’Union européenne appellent actuellement la Commission européenne à rendre publics tous les documents liés à un traité international anti-contrefaçon gardé confidentiel, après que les États-Unis ont affirmé que ces textes relèvent de la sécurité nationale et donc du secret d’État. Cependant, ces derniers ont aujourd’hui décidé de revoir leur politique de transparence.
The European Commission this week will launch a forum for coordinating attacks against counterfeit and pirated goods, to be announced at a daylong event featuring representatives from a wide range of industries. No representatives of the public interest or consumers appear to be included in the event or related initiatives.
Several German ministries seem to be in a footrace to draft legal text for a filtering regime blocking child pornography from German users’ personal computers agreed by the government last week.
The parliaments of Sweden and the European Union are urging the European Union to make public all documentation related to a secretive global anti-counterfeiting treaty, while the United States has claimed the papers are a matter of national security and therefore a state secret. But now the US has decided to undertake a review of its transparency.
In a trend appearing in other patent offices around the world, patent applications at the European Patent Office continued to rise in 2008, but at a slower rate toward the end of year. At the EPO, this was coupled with the lowest percentage of granted patents in its history.
The United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office on Monday published a proposal for a “rights agency” that would tackle problems related to digital copyright. The envisioned agency that would be managed and funded by rights owners and take up a two-fold task by facilitating the creation of a digital market and preventing and reducing online piracy.
LYON, FRANCE – At the cutting edge of medical technology lie new hopes for patients, but also serious ethical concerns and potential intellectual property snags. Read More...
The World Health Organization on Friday issued a statement on a high-profile debate over Dutch customs authorities’ delays of shipments of legitimate generic pharmaceuticals passing through the European country on their way to patients in developing countries. The goods were apparently believed to be counterfeit medicines.
Health advocates on Friday escalated their alarm over recent seizures by the Dutch government of shipments of legitimate generic pharmaceuticals passing through Europe on their way to developing countries. The European Commission has defended its actions as permissible under its own and international rules, but is being asked to look more carefully at those rules.
Developing nations led by Brazil and India, along with public health providers and advocates, this week continue to press strong concern over seizures of legitimate shipments of generic pharmaceuticals destined for poor patients in the developing world. Raising the issue at the World Trade Organization again, they say new research into numerous shipments of legitimate drugs delayed by authorities in the Netherlands have elevated doubts and may mean potentially thousands of patients put at risk.