Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Innovators around the world filed 3.1 million patent applications in 2016, up 8.3 percent in a seventh straight yearly increase, WIPO’s annual World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPI) report shows. The report, WIPO’s annual report, released at the United Nations in Geneva today, showed China topping patent, trademark and design filings in 2016.
A delegation of heads of biotechnology companies visited Geneva this month to present the International Confederation of Biotechnology Trade Associations (ICBA). The ICBA was created in 2012, but is now looking to make its voice heard in Geneva and inform policy discussions, and is finding it is not easy to become an observer in some organisations. They also underlined the importance of intellectual property for the biotech sector, in particular to attract indispensable capital. The delegation sat down with Intellectual Property Watch’s Catherine Saez to talk about their Geneva visit.
Following a session in May hailed as the most positive in years, the World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and Intellectual Property reconvenes this week. Among items to be discussed are a revised proposal by the African Group to convene a biennial international conference on IP and development, how to deal with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and recommendations of an independent review of the implementation of the 2007 WIPO Development Agenda Recommendations.
A few days after a Leonardo da Vinci painting shattered the record for the most expensive artwork ever sold at Christie’s auction house in New York, the question of resale right for visual artists was discussed at the World Intellectual Property Organization. According to researchers, the establishment of a resale right in a particular country, which benefits the artist when her work is resold at a much higher value, is likely to have no negative effects on the country’s art market. The United States and China, the two largest global art markets, have not implemented the resale right yet.
The World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee last week sent back to the drawing board draft action plans provided by the secretariat on exceptions and limitations to copyright for specific actors such as educational institutions and libraries. Meanwhile, discussions on the rights of broadcasting organisations against signal theft and piracy are expected to give way to a new text on specific topics, to be produced by the end of the month, while topics such as the resale right did not make it to standing agenda items but remain on list of items to be discussed in the spring.
The World Intellectual Property Organization program on intellectual property and environmental technology is looking for consultants to catalyze green tech transactions in the Asia-Pacific region.
A World Intellectual Property Organization report released today shows the growing global importance of intangible capital and its share in the value of end products. The report does not however provide a geographical repartition of this value, nor who actually owns the returns on intangible capital. Three case studies shed light on different production areas: coffee, smart phones, and solar panels.
With no consensus on conducting normative work at the World Intellectual Property Organization on the limitations to copyright for certain actors such as persons with disabilities, educational institutions, and museums, the committee on copyright had agreed on several studies so the issues are better understood. This week, several of those studies were presented to the committee and shed some further light on the issues.
While World Intellectual Property Organization delegates held informal closed consultations at the beginning of this week on a potential treaty protecting rights of broadcasting organisations from signal theft and piracy, a group of Latin American countries has proposed language on limitations and exceptions to these rights.
Nobody among members of the World Intellectual Property Organization disputes the importance of the public services provided by libraries and archives. However, positions are different when it comes to providing exceptions to copyright to those entities so they can continue to dispense their services, in particular in the digital age. An updated study presented today in a WIPO committee shows that most countries have exceptions relating to libraries, but termed in very different ways, and are hesitant on how to deal with digital technologies.
The World Intellectual Property Organization has grasped the nettle after years of discussion on the issue of limitations and exceptions to copyright, and provided draft action plans, one each for libraries, archives, museums, educational research institutions, and persons with other disabilities than sight impairment. The plans, being discussed in this week's committee meeting, include brainstorming sessions, studies, and regional seminars, and conferences to advance understanding and issues related to copyright for those particular actors.
The World Intellectual Property Organization this week held an event that delved into research, markets and access for vaccines with panels that showed unusual breadth of representation for the UN IP agency. But health advocates have taken issue with the wording of a report released by WIPO at the event.