Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Improved searches and application quality and a focus on backlog reduction are necessary to improve the patent system, patent authorities concluded at a World Intellectual Property Organization symposium last week. This will require patent offices around the world to work together, and the WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty, most speakers said, is the path forward for global patent coordination.
Several strategy papers laying out a plan to aid European Union member states in responding to the pandemic outbreak of H1N1 influenza were published last week by the European Commission, as Europe enters its fall flu season. Meanwhile, a partnership between the Commission and the European pharmaceutical industry announced a second call for proposals, aimed at increasing research and development of medicines for cancer as well as infectious disease.
World Intellectual Property Organization Director General Francis Gurry was accompanied publicly for the first time by the United Nations agency’s first economist as they presented data Friday showing the positive correlation between patent applications and economic cycles.
Google’s court settlement in the United States that could allow the search engine giant to sell scanned books online is increasingly coming under fire prior to the final hearing in the matter next month. Government entities and groups in the United States and in Europe that oppose the settlement could, at the very least, temporarily derail Google Book Search, according to sources.
Stakeholders gathered this week to discuss a European approach to the governance of the internet in the lead-up to the next global forum on the issue.
The second European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) took place in Geneva on 14-15 September and brought together some 200 representatives.
A French court recently decided to exclude domain name registrars from liability for trademark infringing domain names registered by their customers in a case involving 13 large French companies against Luxembourg domain name registrar EuroDNS. The Third Chamber of the…
The 18th of September will mark the last shipment of lower-cost HIV/AIDS medicines from Canada to Rwanda under a World Trade Organization-sanctioned arrangement. The first shipment of the antiretroviral combination drug manufactured by Canadian pharmaceutical company Apotex was sent in…
The European Patent Office today announced four people in the running to replace its current president, Alison Brimelow, who is not seeking another term after hers expires on 30 June 2010.
The way the patent system is currently structured rewards slowness and low quality, but the needed changes will have to include a new revenue model, a top European patent official said today.
COPENHAGEN - Technology transfer is bound to be part of a possible new international climate deal at the high-level meeting in Copenhagen in December, according to officials. Meanwhile, international economists have concluded that such transfers constitute a win-win situation for developed and developing countries when it comes to combating climate change.