Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Sidney Rosenzweig of the Progress & Freedom Foundation writes that some countries, such as China, want to take advantage of new environmental technologies without having to pay, and are advocating the use of compulsory licences to access them.
The China Patent & Trademark Office and the State Intellectual Property Office will be closed from 4 to 6 April for Tomb-sweeping Day, a celebration of ancestors, which falls this year on 4 April, according to an email from Hylands…
LONDON—Leaders of the world’s largest economies struck a closed-door deal late Tuesday to create an international court for intellectual property litigation in a move sources said they deemed a best effort to turn back global economic demise.
The Obama administration’s new trade team has quickly come under pressure to focus on protecting United States interests, including enforcement of intellectual property rights, at a time when multilateral institutions urge governments to remain open for the sake of the global economy.
The European Commission this week will launch a forum for coordinating attacks against counterfeit and pirated goods, to be announced at a daylong event featuring representatives from a wide range of industries. No representatives of the public interest or consumers appear to be included in the event or related initiatives.
Several German ministries seem to be in a footrace to draft legal text for a filtering regime blocking child pornography from German users’ personal computers agreed by the government last week.
The Obama administration recently nominated Larry Strickling assistant secretary of Commerce for communications and information, a post which would make him head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The NTIA is responsible for the US government agreement overseeing…
Newly confirmed United States Commerce Secretary Gary Locke was asked some questions about patents during his nomination process in the Senate. The Commerce secretary oversees the US Patent and Trademark Office. Here are his responses [pdf], according to a Washington…
Five new studies on select patent-related topics and informal, open-ended consultations on global issues are the key elements of future work for a World Intellectual Property Organization committee that wrapped up its meeting late Friday.
Georg Greve of Free Software Foundation Europe makes the case that software fails a three-step test to determine patentability.