Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The ratification of an international convention to fight counterfeit of medical products by Guinea has unlocked the entry into force of the instrument, now set to happen on 1 January 2016.
On 29 September, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution on how to safeguard the public interest against the interests of the pharmaceutical industry.
As government negotiators dig into perhaps the final round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations this week in Atlanta, they may take comfort in knowing that nothing they are doing has to be shared with the public they represent until years after it is over. That's because a federal district court in Manhattan decided this week, in a closely watched Freedom of Information Act case brought by Intellectual Property Watch, that draft texts of the trade deal can be kept secret. The court did, however, cast doubt on the government's reasons for also keeping its communications with industry lobbyists from the public eye.
One of the major imminent changes in the international patent system is the establishment of the Unified Patent Court. The agreement to create this tribunal was signed by 25 European Union States in 2013, and it is foreseen that the Court will be operational by the end of 2016. Setting up of a single tribunal with competence to decide on both validity and infringement disputes is an old European aspiration, and must be seen in the context of the global trend of creating specialized intellectual property tribunals. In this case, the aim is to respond to the high costs, forum shopping and lack of legal certainty that are generally attributed to the current system of adjudicating disputes concerning European patents. Among the many new features of the Court, the presence of technical judges is particularly notable.
Once, hashtags (like #cute_cat) merely identified topics on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. No longer. A rapidly growing number of companies are using hashtags (like #HowDoYouKFC) as trademarks. There is one problem, however. A court in the US has recently ruled that hashtags can never receive trademark protection.
IFRRO, the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations, has issued comments on the recent opinion offered by the European Copyright Society on European Court of Justice Case C-572/13, Hewlett-Packard Belgium v. Reprobel.
Later this week (30 September) the original deadline for the so-called IANA transition runs out. But despite stern warnings from US Assistant Commerce Secretary Lawrence Strickling and former Clinton aide Ira Magaziner that further delays could put the planned change of oversight over the management core internet infrastructure assets at risk, tensions could not be laid to rest over the weekend. After a two-day weekend “dialogue” in Los Angeles between the ICANN Board and the group in charge of developing new accountability mechanisms, it became clear that final text cannot be expected before early next year.
The London-based International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) today announced that a Russian court has ordered popular Russian social network vKontakte to use technology to effectively block infringement of two record companies.
US President Obama told world leaders at the United Nations today that a nation that tries to repress its people is doomed to failure, and that the new measure of the strength of nations is the success of its people, including their knowledge and creativity. Access to information cannot be defeated due to technology and social media, and the desire of people to choose how they are governed, he said.
It is a healthy trend that the awareness on GI is on the rise in India. However, the misuse of GI legislation also is rampant. Recent past has witnessed many instances of inappropriate GI Registrations, writes Praveen Raj.
A conference involving European governments and industry on how to comply with the new European Union rules on access and benefit sharing, organised by the International Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by the agriculture industry, is taking place this week in Paris. Seemingly contrary to the subject of access and sharing, the event is closed to the public and media.
New delegates have arrived to Geneva just in time for the annual Assemblies of the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization trade ministerial. Geneva Delegates Zoraida Rodríguez, Deputy Permanent Representative to the World Intellectual Property Organization and…