Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Two new proposals concerning the rights of artists seemed to bring new energy to the World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee last week. Proposals encouraged delegates to create a legal framework to help artists benefit from use of their works and royalties by intermediaries.
The World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee closed last week without a definite work programme for the next session but two new projects seem to have stirred up the committee after years of inconclusive talks on a proposed treaty protecting broadcasts, and exceptions to copyright for libraries, archives, education and research. The new subjects relate to exceptions for museums, and resale rights. Meanwhile, a new text on broadcasting is being prepared for next session.
The World Intellectual Property Organization is working on an extension to its patent search systems to include specific searches for chemical compounds. The system is expected to be operational by July 2016.
Two and a half years after an international treaty was adopted to facilitate access to special format literary works for blind and visually impaired people, the European Blind Union blames the failure of the European Union to ratify it as a failure to implement the right to read in the EU.
Museums usually gather heterogeneous objects, coming in various forms, and engage in different activities in relation to those objects. With the advance of information technologies, museums have to adapt and consider the digitisation of their collections, which brings copyright questions, according to a study presented yesterday at the World Intellectual Property Organization.
On the side of this week’s World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), the International Authors Forum held a side event on 7 December. Speakers underlined the importance of copyright for authors so that they can make a living from their writing, and warned about ill-defined fair use in copyright law.
The World Intellectual Property Organization committee on copyright opened today with an agenda of a potential treaty to protect broadcasting organisations against piracy, and copyright limitations and exceptions for libraries, archives, educational and research institutions, as well as for persons with disabilities other than visual impairment.
Two days of informal consultations last week did not bring World Intellectual Property Organization members to agreement on a work programme for the next session of its committee on the law of patents. Developed and developing countries have different views on the work of the committee, with developing countries seeking work on patent on health, and limitations and exceptions to patent rights, while developed countries are more interested in work-sharing between patent offices and protecting the confidentiality of information between patent advisers and their clients.
A seminar on patents and availability of medicines in developing countries yesterday considered whether patents constitute a barrier to access. For the private sector, patents are essential to the innovation system, for others they maintain high prices and should be licensed for easier access. Beyond patents, biologics seem to be taking over the pharmaceutical industry, and the complexity of manufacturing biosimilars might well leave traditional generic manufacturers by the wayside.
Separately, a side event at WIPO looked at IP management strategies in private-public partnerships in agriculture and health technologies.
The United Nations Development Programme joined forces with the World Blind Union to prepare a new report aimed at facilitating Asia-Pacific countries’ ratification of a treaty designed to help visually-impaired people access special format books.