Original news and analysis on international IP policy
A new system to more effectively licence technology and facilitate the trading of intellectual property rights will come online later this year - and an increasing number of countries are taking notice.
The European Commission has announced plans to ease access to scientific research results, paving the way for what it hopes will be greater innovation and a higher return on its multi-billion euro annual research and development investment. And it was preceded one day by a similar plan in the United Kingdom.
Theft of trade secrets, or “confidential business information,” has reached such an appalling level that legislative action is needed, industry groups say. They're pushing the European Union and United States to get involved, and may be making headway.
The Mexican Intellectual Property Office (IMPI) last week announced that the Mexican Ambassador in Japan had signed the much debated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Now it thinks it can persuade the country's new Senate to pass it.
At a little-publicised annual meeting of the Transatlantic Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Working Group in Brussels this week representatives of the European Commission, several United States agencies and rights holder agreed that there might be tough times ahead for IPRs and rights holders. Meanwhile, the Commission is under pressure on copyright exceptions for visually impaired readers on the eve of a World Intellectual Property Organization meeting. And the Commission this week introduced new rules on collective societies aimed at easing user access to content.
The European Commission yesterday announced its largest research budget ever, allocating €10.8 billion towards innovative research aimed at generating job growth for 2013. It issued a call for proposals that includes €1.5 billion targeted toward information and communications technologies.
The Supreme Court of India has postponed hearing final arguments in a key challenge to India's patent law brought by Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis.
Today’s overwhelming defeat of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) by the European Parliament could have a resounding effect on the treaty’s prospects for survival, according to sources. Meanwhile, public interest groups are celebrating and copyright holders fuming.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on 3 July announced the proposal of a new provision for a trade agreement that will put copyright exceptions and limitations to a 3-step test. The text of the provision was not made available to the public, and reaction to the news by public interest groups has been cautious.
EU Trade Commissioner Karl De Gucht today made a last appeal to the European Parliament today to delay the decision on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in order to allow the European Court of Justice to give its opinion. But he met with strong indications that a rejection of the controversial agreement may be coming tomorrow.
The United States government on 2 July announced it has awarded a contract to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to manage a key underlying function of the internet for up to 7 years.
The United Kingdom government will publish draft updates to the UK copyright licensing system later this week, keeping strong criminal penalties, it said today.