Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Starting next week, Marrakesh, Morocco, will be the site of a two-week high level conference expected to yield a treaty facilitating the international access to books for blind and visually impaired people. Stakes are high, not only for the beneficiaries, but also for the industry worried that the copyright system might be endangered by the new treaty, introducing limitations to copyright.
To what extent can global intellectual property rules address in an effective manner the needs of the most vulnerable members of society? This is the key question with which member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) are faced as they prepare to meet next week for a diplomatic conference, in Marrakesh, that should result in the adoption of a treaty to facilitate access to copyrighted works by visually impaired persons and persons with print disabilities.
During a recent meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP), a study on innovation in the informal economy was presented by the organisation's secretariat. The exercise was conducted in an effort to better understand how innovation occurs and how intellectual property is relevant in that context.
Officials from the IP5, the five largest intellectual property offices in the world, met this week to move forward on harmonising patent law procedure between the offices.
Geographical indications, a European invention, have attracted interest in a number of developing countries. According to several speakers at a recent industry conference on the subject, GIs can provide economic sustainability for rural families. In Africa, two cases were provided to illustrate the role of the valorisation of a particular resource and the ancestral know-how of women, promoting their social and financial autonomy.
World Intellectual Property Organization delegates advanced work on a draft treaty text on industrial design this week but were left divided on the opportunity of holding a high-level meeting to adopt such a treaty in 2014. One of the sticking points was whether to include an article on technical assistance and capacity building in the text of the draft treaty. The committee also decided to continue work on the protection of country names in the context of trademarks.
The protection of country names was discussed today by World Intellectual Property Organization members with a more amiable approach than on how to include technical assistance in a draft treaty text on industrial designs. The question of the convening of a high-level meeting to adopt the potential treaty was also discussed with dissension between developing and developed countries.
The US film industry and advocates for the blind joined forces today to urge World Intellectual Property Organization negotiators to keep treaty talks focussed on the core issue of making more books available to the blind and visually impaired. The joint statement appeared to be aimed at reining in stakeholders on both sides of the international debate.
Members of a World Intellectual Property Organization committee working towards a treaty to simplify the international registration of industrial designs are finding it difficult to agree whether the draft treaty text should include articles on technical assistance and capacity building, or whether a resolution should be left to a top-level meeting on the subject.
A panel of professionals working in the design industry this week gave their views on the interaction between intellectual property, innovation and design.
Geographical indications were born in Europe and still remain a widely used means to protect products from a particular region, with particular characteristics. The European Union has been a strong advocate of GIs in international negotiations, while their efforts have been countered by countries such as the United States which favour a trademark system. Now both sides are trying to impose their views through bilateral trade agreements, including with each other, according to speakers at a recent conference. And now a US trade association for generic names is raising concerns in Europe.
Another World Intellectual Property Organization committee opened with the prospect of achieving progress on a potential treaty text this week. The committee is trying to establish an instrument that would simplify the international registration of industrial designs.