Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The Modern Poland Foundation, a non-profit and access to knowledge advocate, is asking people around the globe to participate in a crowdfunded contest that poses the question: What should a good copyright system look like?
Prof. Sean Flynn writes that the transparency in the breakthrough agreement on an international treaty for the visually impaired in Morocco is a lesson for trade negotiators who encounter difficulties after keeping trade agreement texts secret until negotiations are over, such as in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).
The Internet Society (ISOC) today announced the names of 32 individuals who have made significant contributions to the web for induction into the 2013 Internet Hall of Fame.
Lisbon, Portugal - The surveillance affair around the US Prism programme left its mark on the 2013 European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) in Lisbon last week. Legal experts at the sixth edition of the European version of the Internet Governance Forum pondered possible legal reactions, companies revealed as targets or (unwilling) partners of the programme tried to limit the damage, while Swedish ambassador Olaf Ehrenkrona admitted that state surveillance programs need to be reconsidered given the ease of mass surveillance in the era of a public internet space.
The Obama administration and academic and industry partners today announced their commitment to support the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), a public-private endeavor whose aim is to reduce the time required to develop novel materials that can “fuel advanced manufacturing and bolster the 21st century American economy.”
A large portion of the United States Congress this week signed on to a letter to President Obama criticising India for its treatment of intellectual property rights.
A new coalition of United States business groups, called the Alliance for Fair Trade with India (ATFI), launched today to take aim against what they say are discriminatory trade practices in India against US exports.
In their traditional communiqué, Group of Eight countries at their annual summit welcomed ongoing efforts to negotiate bilateral and multilateral trade deals which they say will allow them to overcome economic uncertainties and shoulder the responsibility to support prosperity worldwide.
The United States Supreme Court in a five to three decision today found that settlement agreements by branded pharmaceutical companies involving payments to generic companies to delay their cheaper drugs' entry into the market may not be immune from antitrust scrutiny but are not "presumptively" unlawful. The case was sent back to lower court.
Last Thursday, the United States Supreme Court overturned more than 30 years of precedents and ruled that isolated genes cannot be patented. They are products of nature and thus not patent-eligible subject matter, the court unanimously held in Assoc. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. This ruling puts the US at odds with most other nations, which allow genes to be patented. But because other major nations grant narrower gene patents, the net effect of Myriad will be to shift the US position on gene patents closer to that of other nations.
During day one of the Summit of the G8 countries at Lough Erne Golf Resort in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland today, President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and the President of the European Commission, Manuel Barroso, jointly announced the formal start of negotiations of the US-EU free trade agreement, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
Infojustice.org examines the evolving responsibilities of the US International Trade Commission (ITC) and its decision to bar imports of older Apple iPhones and iPads, finding that they infringed patents held by Samsung.