Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The recent Internet Governance Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan was used as a stage for some very targeted messages on the upcoming World Conference on International Telecommunication, it saw yet another round of exchanges on some of the tough questions of digital society from privacy and security to future copyright, and had the most intensive discussions on human rights in cyberspace so far.
A study compiling the results of two surveys on the need for reform of United Nations development activities was presented this week in the presence of US and Indian ambassadors who agreed on needed improvements, though with a North and South perspective.
The ETC Group has issued a warning that "agribusiness giants Monsanto, DuPont and Dow are plotting the boldest coup of a global food crop in history," as they have applied to the Mexican government for the planting of transgenic maize on 2,500,000 hectares, approximately the size of El Salvador.
The Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a health financing institution focused on the global South, is poised this week to select its next director – from the North. And while the selection process has been conducted in the utmost secrecy, confidential selection documents show that the list is down to four candidates, said to be from Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The only independent external oversight body of the United Nations has launched a new website, making it easier to access its reports dating back to 1968, and other information.
Baku, Azerbaijan - The need to bring all stakeholders together to discuss the future of copyright appears to have gotten a push from this year’s UN-led Internet Governance Forum.
Baku, Azerbaijan - Amelia Andersdotter, member of the European Parliament for the Swedish Pirate Party, in no polite words today (6 November) told the participants of the 7th Internet Governance Forum in Baku what she thought about the lack of progress in adapting copyright to the digital age.
The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) held a symposium last week on the benefits of plant variety protection as a way to help mitigate agricultural challenges and improve the livelihood of farmers. Also last week, during the UPOV Council, civil society denounced a push for a more stringent version of the UPOV Convention, and said new rules for observers were disappointing.
Baku, Azerbaijan - Human rights on the internet, the new generic top-level domains, how the net can be managed and ruled - these are main topics on the published agenda of the 7th United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Baku, Azerbaijan.
South-South trade and investment is growing and could lead to greater technology sharing but some countries are left out, particularly least developed countries, due to lack of technological capacity, according to a new United Nations report that also looked at intellectual property in the context of the rising South-South collaboration. Separately, UNCTAD also has begun consultations on joint work with the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Members of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) meet this week for their annual Council and a series of preparatory meetings. Meanwhile, civil society keeps pushing for greater participation.
Meetings at UN agencies in Geneva are not often mainstream news - but given the high profile nature of legal disputes about smartphone and tablet technology taking place around the world, a meeting to discuss an arcane area of patent policy - the ITU Patent Roundtable - was widely covered, as it brought together some of the titans of the mobile and internet industry plus government regulators and standards bodies.