Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The mining industry in Chile offers an interesting case study on the role of intellectual property in the innovation process, according to a discussion at a recent event held at the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Recent negotiations at the World Intellectual Property Organization to create a new Act for the protection of geographical indications were intensive, with the outcome considered a landmark breakthrough by negotiators and a blow to the UN agency’s legitimacy by others. But a search on global coverage of and reactions to the new agreement raises the question of whether it has attracted broader attention.
Members of the Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration on 20 May agreed on a new Act of the agreement, extending protection previously granted only to appellations of origins to geographical indications. The World Intellectual Property Organization is responsible for this agreement. After the signing ceremony at WIPO, Intellectual Property Watch sat down with WIPO Director General Francis Gurry to discuss the new Act.
Today, the signing ceremony of the new World Intellectual Property Organization agreement to protect geographical indications was held. On the first day, 11 members, mostly current Lisbon members, signed the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications.
The European Council of member states yesterday adopted a decision asking the European Commission to draft legislation on Europe’s ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty on increasing access to publications for blind and visually impaired readers.
Today, a small number of World Intellectual Property Organization members adopted a new Geneva Act of a treaty protecting appellations of origin and geographical indications. The Act is the revision of a previous treaty which only covered appellations of origin. This adoption was made to the dismay of other WIPO members, which despite efforts to accommodate their views could not reconcile being denied the right to vote in a United Nations body. They said the agreement among a few members could affect all.
[Update: the new Act has been adopted. More to come.] After a week of drafting, a handful of World Intellectual Property Organization members – with often divergent input from other WIPO members – are close to concluding a new international agreement on the protection of geographical indications.
Senators Blumenthal, Brown, Baldwin, and Udall introduced today a trade negotiation transparency bill that would require that all formal U.S. proposals for trade agreement restrictions on domestic regulations be posted on a website. This is a common sense policy that should be broadly supported. The bill would require policies similar to the transparency policies currently followed by the European Union and by intergovernmental organizations that set similar minimum regulatory standards. But it would be a major change in the current process for trade negotiations followed by the U.S. Trade Representative, which are infamously secretive, write Sean Flynn and David Levine.
A small number of World Intellectual Property Organization members this week are negotiating to expand a treaty to protect geographical indications, products like Champagne. Under the old treaty, which protects appellations of origin, over half of the registrations are in France, and another large amount in Italy. According to an analysis, many of the 28 members of the treaty have zero or very few registrations, raising the question of how the new GI protection will be different if agreed.
Members of a World Intellectual Property Organization-managed treaty protecting appellations of origin this week are working to add geographical indications to the treaty. They are addressing issues not yet agreed upon, including the sustainability of the system, and how to address prior use of such geographical indications by trademark owners.