Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The supposedly impossible happened: The Marrakesh Treaty entered into force on 30 September, three months after reaching the necessary minimum of 20 ratifications. By then, 22 countries had done so – two more did so during the Marrakesh Assembly.
At last week's first-ever Assembly of the Marrakesh Treaty, Intellectual Property Watch caught up with the Assembly Chair, new Brazilian Culture Minister Marcelo Calero. He talked briefly about the importance of libraries and of implementing the Marrakesh Treaty.
Each year, the World Intellectual Property Organization Economic and Statistics Division sends out questionnaires, which intellectual property offices worldwide are expected to complete and return.
A European civil society group defending rights and freedoms in the digital environment awarded Facebook the Belgian Big Brother Awards 2016 yesterday.
As autumn rolled in, two United Nations agencies chose global figures to help them with their missions, another has a new website, and changed heads, while non-governmental organisations, law offices, and industry also saw numerous changes at management level.
Following a public hearing at its headquarters in Munich, the European Patent Office (EPO) decided to reject in part the arguments made by Gilead Sciences to uphold their patent on sofosbuvir, according to a non-profit group.
“The federal court in Galveston, Texas denied the plaintiffs' application for declaratory and injunctive relief. As of 1 October 2016, the IANA functions contract has expired.” This two-sentence statement from Assistant US Commerce Secretary for Communications and Information and National Telecommunication and Information Administration Administrator Lawrence Strickling ended an era of direct United States oversight over changes to the authoritative root zone of the internet domain name system, and as a contractor for a set of core internet databases.
The US Supreme Court agreed on 29 September to take up the question of whether the Lanham Act, which allows the US Patent and Trademark Office to refuse to register disparaging trademarks, conflicts with the First Amendment right to free speech.
Patent infringers are supposed to pay damages, but the award in this case struck many as ridiculous. Some Samsung smartphones contained one or two purely decorative design elements that had been patented by Apple. But instead of paying modest damages for what many see as a tiny infringement, Samsung was ordered to pay $399 million – all the profits the company had made from its infringing phones. The Federal Circuit said it had no choice but to approve those damages; it was constrained by statute. Critics, however, said that the Federal Circuit had misinterpreted the statute. They fret the court’s error will unleash a wave of design patent infringement suits that will harm innovation, stifle competition, and empower patent trolls. Which is why so many will be paying close attention on 11 October, when this dispute comes before the US Supreme Court.
European Union trade ministers at an informal meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia today agreed on the final steps to enact CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the EU. There will be no other reopening of the text, assured EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem after the meeting. But ministers have agreed, according to Slovak Minister of Economy Peter Ziga, that some sensitive issues have to be straightened out in an additional annex to the CETA text.
The Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry (FESI) and the European Commission recently signed a memorandum of understanding that sets out to “establish a code of practice in the fight against the sale of counterfeit goods over the internet and to enhance collaboration between the signatories.”
Criminals are increasingly blocking access to digitised intellectual property and then charging their victims ransom to get it back, as “ransomware” attacks become increasingly common and sophisticated.