ICC’s 2012 IP Roadmap Lays Out Key Policy Issues

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) yesterday released a business guide to key intellectual property policy issues worldwide.

The Paris-based business group announced its 11th edition of the ICC Intellectual Property Roadmap: Current and Emerging Issues for Business and Policymakers, at the Licensing Executives Society International’s (LESI) Global Technology Impact Forum.

According to ICC: “Most sections of the 11th edition Roadmap have been extensively updated to highlight IP developments arising from technological, economic, political and social changes. These include the decision to open up the generic Top Level Domain name space, measures to control copyright and trademark infringement on the Internet, and efforts to address the high costs and lengthy proceedings necessary to obtain patents in multiple jurisdictions (such as more intensive cooperation between patent offices, further steps in the EU initiative to create a unitary patent and patent litigation system, and reform bringing the US patent system one step closer to other patent systems worldwide).”

It also includes developments related to the life sciences, such as the conclusion of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing in relation to genetic resources, and the protection of biosimilar drugs in the EU and the US, it said.

The roadmap is published every two years, it is translated into several languages including Arabic, Chinese, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian.

The ICC IP Roadmap 2012 is available here.