Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The United States mission in Geneva announced today a new international initiative to raise public awareness about protection of intellectual property rights. The initiative is a cooperation with the World Intellectual Property Organization and has support from the governments of Kenya, Morocco and the Philippines, US Ambassador Betty King said at a reception.
The first financial marketplace for the trading of patent rights is scheduled to go online this year, and other countries are eyeing the United States’ progress with interest.
Comments on the future of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) - which makes the underlying changes to the internet - are slowly trickling in at the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), with five days to go to the end of a consultation period. In its comments, the body managing the IANA functions for the United States suggests moving control of those functions out of longstanding, singular US control.
Google’s efforts to resolve questions of copyright infringement in its digital library project did not yield the hoped-for result as a district court judge yesterday rejected the agreement. But the judge left open the possibility that the parties could come back again with revisions.
A list of briefs were filed Friday in support of maintaining the high standard in the United States for questioning the validity of patent. The decision of the Supreme Court expected in the coming months could have a major impact on patent law.
US software-maker Microsoft today filed lawsuits for patent infringement against bookseller Barnes & Noble and its makers of Android-based electronic book reader and tablet devices.
Legitimate efforts in the United States to address counterfeiting problems have been “hijacked” to benefit rights holders who should protect their own interests and change their business models, the Computer & Communications Industry Association has said.
Companies doing business in the United States have, for the past 15 months, found themselves in the cross-hairs. Bayer, Nike, L’Oreal, Sony, Wal-Mart, Novo Nordisk and hundreds of other firms have been sued for making or selling products displaying incorrect or expired patent numbers. And the liability for such false patent marking can be astronomical, with a defendant potentially facing fines of billions or even trillions of dollars.
The bill to reform United States patent law recently passed by the Senate purports to bring US law closer to laws of other major patent-filing nations. But how close would it come?
The Obama administration today issued a series of recommended legislative changes to further beef up domestic intellectual property rights protection, including boosting criminal punishment of pharmaceutical counterfeiters and those engaged in "economic espionage," increasing wiretapping, making infringing online streaming a felony, and giving more powers to customs officials.
The push for ever more far-reaching intellectual property enforcement in the domain name system was heavily criticised at a conference of the Non-Commercial Users' Constituency (NCUC) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Friday. The NCUC conference on "Internet Governance and the Global Public Interest" took place one day before the first constituency meetings of the 40th ICANN meeting in San Francisco (13-18 March).
BRUSSELS - In an arm-wrestling exercise, governments and the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) last week tried to reach common ground on intellectual property rights protection and governments' ability to intervene with applications for new top-level domains that they see as “sensitive” or “vulnerable” like .nazi, .gay or .bank.