Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The World Intellectual Property Organization committee on the law of patents got a slow start this morning as delegates did not agree on the draft agenda submitted by the secretariat for this session. After informal consultations during the morning, WIPO members accepted a draft revised agenda proposed by the committee chair.
The World Intellectual Property Organization patent law committee meets this week with a work programme reflecting strong interests that are not equally shared by member states. Developed countries in the past have focused on ways to share work between patent offices, while developing countries would favour more time being spent on limitations and exceptions to patent rights, in particular in the area of health.
An international coalition of intellectual property rights defenders wrote a letter to World Intellectual Property Organization Director General Francis Gurry yesterday providing suggested international guidelines to protect IP rights.
The World Intellectual Property Organization Program and Budget Committee (PBC) last week took note of WIPO’s mostly positive 2014 progress report, walked through its proposed program and budget for 2016-2017, and addressed issues of investment, governance, new external offices, and development. Many issues will be carried forward to the next PBC meeting in mid-September, just prior to the annual WIPO General Assembly.
The World Intellectual Property Organization Program and Budget Committee (PBC) is meeting this week with a full agenda of issues relating to planning for the next biennium as well as management matters.
An academic research project on the value of the public domain has documented its importance to innovation and creativity. In one empirical study in the project, it was shown that use of the public domain boosts crowd-funding efforts by innovators. The study was discussed recently at the World Intellectual Property Organization.
People are becoming increasingly mobile. With that, there are new expectations and needs. Video-on-demand industry experts told a recent event at the World Intellectual Property Organization that this represents a “change of paradigm,” requiring new models for financing and distributing films.
Copyright protection advances the public interest, and good public policy must properly consider “the role of intellectual property as a tool for economic emancipation, a catalyst for cultural diversity, and a powerful protector of individual dignity and fundamental human rights,” argues RIAA’s Neil Turkewitz.
As the broadcasting sector is growing in developing countries, concern over piracy of the signal of their broadcasts is rising, according to delegates from South Africa. Delegates attending last week’s World Intellectual Property Organisation copyright committee meeting sat down with Intellectual Property Watch and argued the importance of a potential WIPO treaty protecting broadcasting organisations’ rights.
Despite what was described as good momentum by World Intellectual Property Organization delegates trying to find ways to protect broadcasting organisations against piracy and providing copyright exceptions and limitations for the benefit of libraries, archives, education and research, no recommendation to the upcoming annual WIPO General Assembly could be agreed last week.
World Intellectual Property Organization delegates this week have underlined the positive mood which governed the discussions on a potential treaty protecting broadcasting organisations. The topic has been on the agenda of WIPO’s committee on copyright for some 17 years. This week some convergence emerged notably on what the treaty should protect.
Yesterday, the chair of the World Intellectual Property Organization committee on copyright issued a non-official paper to delegates in an effort to break what appeared at the beginning of the session as status quo as delegations camped on their previous positions.