Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The tiny island state of Singapore has begun to ramp up its capacity for patent search and examination ahead of a bold move to adopt a new patent system, one of the proposed major amendments to its Patents Act. The Southeast Asian economic high-flyer is pressing for changes to its laws to position itself as an Asian hub for intellectual property.
The Republic of Korea has opened its fourth satellite copyright office, in the Philippines, in a bid to protect its copyrighted works amid the popularity of Korean entertainment in this Southeast Asian nation.
The European Court of Justice recently reaffirmed the limits of copyright protection in computer software.
Switzerland has postponed signature of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) until it has more information from several ongoing processes in Europe, the government said yesterday.
In this post, three US law professors explain a recent call by over 30 legal scholars for the US Trade Representative to increase transparency for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement intellectual property chapter, and their response to Ambassador Kirk’s response that he is “strongly offended” by the suggestion that the negotiation is not adequately transparent already.
Washington, DC - Corporations need to become more involved in the battles being fought over the internet - from expanding top-level domain names, protecting brands on social media, to counterfeiting and internet security - or they are going to be left on the sidelines as policy is created both in the United States and elsewhere, speakers at the International Trademark Association (INTA) said yesterday.
Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) advises developing countries against signing the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, BMZ official Frank Schmiedchen said during a meeting of the Committee of Petitions of the German Parliament today.
The heads of the World Intellectual Property Organization and the European Patent Office today signed a three-year agreement to mutually improve the procedural framework of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).
It was a major legal battle between copyright owners and online businesses. Then, on 5 April, online businesses won. Mostly. The US appellate court ruling in Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc. basically upheld the legal protection that a key US statute grants to online firms. However, the ruling also opened several holes in that protection.
Eben Moglen, a professor of law and history at Columbia University, made a haunting appeal to participants of the 6th re:publica conference that opened in Berlin this morning: Do not to fail in completing the fight for freedom of thought.
A report released today asserts that trade secret theft is occurring on a massive scale worldwide, and that most companies are not taking sufficient steps to stop it. The report, which comes on the eve of bilateral economic meetings between the United States and China, offers a set of recommended actions for companies and others. Also today, leading Democratic members of Congress urged the Obama administration to demand improvements in China on intellectual property rights protection.
Groups representing a range of music industry companies in the United States recently struck what they call an “historic” agreement on the tricky matter of mechanical royalty rates and standards in a digital age. Now, they are awaiting final approval on the agreement.