Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Geographical indications (GIs) can be a tool for sustainable development in rural areas and are attracting a rising interest from developing country producers, but some ingredients must be taken into account, such as an effective legal framework and collective management of the GIs, according to a recently released guide produced by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, formerly an economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Directorate for Science, Technology, and Industry, has joined the World Intellectual Property Organization as a senior economic officer under its chief economist Carsten Fink. Wunsch-Vincent has…
The European Patent Office will hold another extraordinary meeting on Monday to try and elect a replacement for outgoing president Alison Brimelow. The 1 March election will be the fourth attempt for one of the candidates to get the required…
Far-reaching provisions on the patenting of medicine have been inserted into a controversial free trade agreement between the European Union and Colombia and Peru.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (Democrat, Vermont) today announced at an “executive business meeting” that a “tentative agreement” had been reached on patent reform legislation. The original intent of the reform, Leahy said, was to “improve patent quality” and…
By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch In a written declaration presented 24 February, members of the Liberal Party Group (ALDE), the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), and the European People’s Party (EPP) requested the European Commission immediately…
A new leaked document from the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations confirms earlier statements by officials that the agreement does not include mandatory internet cut-off for accused copyright infringers. Yet versions of the so-called “three strikes and you’re out” model…
Leaps forward in technology can bring with them dramatic social changes; in particular the expansion of digital and social media has both democratised the power to record information and to be heard, but it has also simultaneously made it easier than ever before for public institutions to intrude upon private lives.
Whether a settlement offered to authors whose works are being scanned into a Google database will be accepted or not must wait for the presiding judge, Denny Chin, to sort through volumes of material whose presentation began Thursday, according to…
A treaty on copyright exceptions for visually impaired readers, open educational materials, use of the internet without surveillance, and early human rights movements around access to electricity were among issues debated at a recent academic conference on access to knowledge.