Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The Office of the United States Trade Representative will again make intellectual property rights a top priority in trade relations with China in 2014, and will not hesitate to take actions such as to bring World Trade Organization dispute settlement cases as needed, USTR has said.
More than 250 academics from around the world have signed a declaration strongly calling for a stop to surveillance of citizens' communications online by US and European authorities. And in December, more than 500 top authors joined a coalition called Writers against Mass Surveillance calling for international rules to curb wholesale surveillance.
A recent conference on intellectual property and the public interest concluded with the adoption of public interest principles to guide international trade negotiations and international organisations.
When it comes to software-related inventions, US patent law is a confused mess. So it was no surprise that, in early December, the United States Supreme Court announced it would weigh in on the matter. The court granted certiorari in Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank in order to decide when software-related inventions are patentable subject matter. But given the complicated technology and the high court’s confusing precedents in this area, many experts fear that the ruling in Alice will bring little clarity to this area of the law.
A new private-sector report shows that after a downturn, patents on a range of technologies for water are back on the rise as companies are busy innovating around a basic human need and resource.
The United States and China today announced agreements on a series of measures to strengthen intellectual property rights protection in China.
The new National Academies report on patents and standards is a landmark effort to shed light on the tensions between patents and standards in information and communications technology. Brian Kahin critiques the report and examines underlying problems that the report sidesteps.
WASHINGTON, DC - The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) programme of strategically placed intellectual property lawyers in key locations abroad continues to grow. And the annual report of a lineup of these IP attachés this week at the US Chamber of Commerce showed they are having some success.
The European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs today received an oral summary of the draft recommendations on mass surveillance, after hearing the testimony of former Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald.
Mike Rogers, chairman of the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, today defended the work of the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies in the US at a meeting with members of the European Parliament, and called for a united front against the theft of intellectual property by China.
The Berne Declaration, a Swiss non-profit, has released results of investigations that found industry-sponsored offshore clinical drug trials in developing countries involve "multiple ethical violations," a problem increased by the patent-based industry business model.
In time for the start of the third round of trade negotiations between the United States and European Union, EU transparency organisation Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) published the first interesting leak on the substance of the talks.