WIPO-Sponsored Neglected Diseases Consortium Celebrates Successful First Year30/10/2012 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a CommentThis week, members of a consortium sponsored by the World Intellectual Property Organization to facilitate research in neglected diseases celebrated the first anniversary of the initiative and claimed an expanding membership and several research collaborations or agreements.
UPOV Council To Formalise Access To Documents; Civil Society Seeks Greater Participation29/10/2012 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch 2 CommentsMembers of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) meet this week for their annual Council and a series of preparatory meetings. Meanwhile, civil society keeps pushing for greater participation.
Petition Urges Delay, Discussion Of Pan-African IP Organization24/10/2012 by Intellectual Property Watch 2 CommentsA new petition circulating worldwide urges the delay of a suddenly fast-moving proposal to create a Pan-African Intellectual Property Organization (PAIPO). The delay effort – which seeks an open discussion of the proposal to make it more tailored to local African needs – comes just weeks before African Union representatives meet to consider its adoption.
In Search of Relevance, Not Solutions: The Truth About ITU’s ‘Patent Roundtable’24/10/2012 by Intellectual Property Watch 2 CommentsMeetings at UN agencies in Geneva are not often mainstream news – but given the high profile nature of legal disputes about smartphone and tablet technology taking place around the world, a meeting to discuss an arcane area of patent policy – the ITU Patent Roundtable – was widely covered, as it brought together some of the titans of the mobile and internet industry plus government regulators and standards bodies.
WHO Member States Hammering Out Details On Non-Communicable Diseases23/10/2012 by Rachel Marusak Hermann for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a CommentIn a single voice, public health authorities spoke out about the need to take on the world’s heaviest disease burdens including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases. Now negotiations are narrowing in on the specifics of how to prevent and control these diseases, and achieving agreement on some commitments, including those related to medicine availability, could prove more challenging.
Governments Weigh Options On New Top-Level Domains At ICANN23/10/2012 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a CommentGovernments have been considering their options with regard to intervening against applications for new generic top level domains, which are currently being processed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Horticultural Breeders Call For Stronger Protection Of Innovations23/10/2012 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a CommentThe protection of intellectual property for plant innovation was at the heart of a recent conference on patents and modern plant breeders rights in horticultural breeding.
Greens Call For ‘Social Contract For Digital Age’; Lessig Calls US Hopeless On Copyright Reform22/10/2012 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a CommentBERLIN–The United States is hopeless when it comes to a copyright reform for the internet, US Law Professor Lawrence Lessig told the German Green Party’s congress on internet politics on Saturday. Europe, Lessig said, could take the lead with regard to that reform, which is needed but blocked in the US by vested interests.
Peace, Love, and Private Practice: Film Industry Lawyer Ted Shapiro To Depart MPA22/10/2012 by Intellectual Property Watch 2 CommentsTed Shapiro, a long-time copyright industry advocate in the European legal trenches for the Motion Picture Association, will leave at year’s end for a private law firm in Brussels.
UN: Governments To Double Biodiversity Funding, Push Access/Benefit-Sharing22/10/2012 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a CommentAt last week’s high-level meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) governments agreed to double financial flows toward biodiversity by 2015, the CBD has announced. They also came up with strategy to move forward on access and benefit-sharing of biodiversity.
