Original news and analysis on international IP policy
ستحاول منظمة الجمارك العالمية هذا الأسبوع التوصل إلى اتفاق بشأن فريق بديل مخفف ضد التقليد والقرصنة من شأنه أن يبدد القلق إزاء التجاوز من قبل موظفي الجمارك. وستنظر المنظمة أيضا في اقتراح يتعلق بإضافة تركيز صريح على الصحة العامة والسلامة إلى أنشطتها المتعلقة بالإنفاذ.
An international coalition of consumer groups has issued a resolution calling into question global enforcement policy and offering core principles for policymakers to consider in setting new enforcement standards.
The World Customs Organization this week will try to reach agreement on a softened replacement group against counterfeiting and piracy that may defuse concerns of overreaching by customs officials. It also will consider a proposal to add an explicit focus on public health and safety to its enforcement activities.
A well-liked and influential IP policymaker in Geneva will head Chile’s national IP office, a US lawyer responsible for perhaps the world’s biggest industry patent portfolio will head the US IP office, and a fixture in the Geneva international trade negotiating and lobbying community is heading home to Canada.
The coming months could spell changes in the long-running World Trade Organization talks on creating a register for wines and spirits geographical indications and amending WTO rules to better protect biodiversity rights. Developed countries that have been blocking progress on the issues for years may be pushed at a political level, according to some sources.
BANGKOK - The European Union told Asian countries Thursday that protecting geographical indications of their products would benefit their poor, rural people as the EU is offering to renew its intellectual property cooperation with regional countries with GI enforcement as a greater element.
BRUSSELS - India’s status as a top world supplier of generic medicines could be threatened by a free trade agreement its government is negotiating with the European Union, a new study has concluded. Separately, the World Customs Organization has abandoned its intellectual property rights enforcement group, replacing it with a non-policymaking information committee.
Seizures of legal generic drugs was the focus of heated discussion Monday at the World Trade Organization Council on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), raising questions about the implementation of enforcement measures in the European Union.
Health advocates have raised alarm over reports that several million pills of generic medicine were held up in Frankfurt airport in May despite being destined for a different port. And new information has come to light indicating Dutch seizures were more numerous than originally thought. These developments have prompted outcry and the assertion that a European-wide law on customs and intellectual property is problematic.
COPENHAGEN - As a candidate for the European Parliament elections on Sunday, the Swedish Pirate Party has “good chances” of winning one, two or possibly even three mandates, it says, referring to Swedish opinion polls.