10th Internet Governance Forum Opens In Joao Pessoa, Brazil 11/11/2015 by Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment In opening the 10th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) of the United Nations in Joao Pessoa, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called for solutions to internet access, but also to address challenges in online human rights, especially privacy.
EU Trademark Reform Advances; Dutch Warn Of Holdup Of Goods In Transit 10/11/2015 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment The European Union Council of ministers today adopted its position on the reform of the European trademark system. The Netherlands delegation abstained from voting out of concern that the proposed reform introduces the possibility to stop goods in transit for possible intellectual property infringement.
ITU: Industries Battle For Greater Spectrum Allocation At WRC-15 10/11/2015 by Marianna Drake for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment The mobile, satellite and broadcasting industries are campaigning for bigger shares of the finite resource that is radio-frequency spectrum at the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s treaty-making conference this month. And in an exhibition area alongside the conference, some of the world’s biggest tech companies are pitching their need for greater spectrum allocation in the hopes of influencing the conference’s outcomes. Among them is Facebook’s Internet.org project.
Users, Governments Give Views On Internet Governance Going Forward 10/11/2015 by William New, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment As governments at the United Nations negotiate outcome documents for the 10 year review of the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the rest of the stakeholders of the global internet are fighting for a voice, especially users. A recent event alongside the WSIS talks explored the user perspective, and discussed the future of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the annual meeting taking place this week in Brazil.
Medicines Patent Pool Expands To Include Hepatitis C, Tuberculosis 09/11/2015 by Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment The Medicines Patent Pool has announced the expansion of its mandate to cover hepatitis C and tuberculosis treatment. The MPP was previously concentrating only on HIV medicines.
New Internet Domain Reservations: There Can Only Be One – Or Not? 09/11/2015 by Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), standardisation body for the internet protocol and related specifications, is concerned about stepping on the toes of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) with a potentially growing number of requests for new top-level domain (TLD) reservations arriving at its doorstep. The recent reservation of a special name space .onion for the Tor anonymization network resulted in a big debate at last week’s meeting of the IETF Domain Name Operations Working Group (DNSOP WG) in Yokohama, Japan. The debate was over how to preserve clear boundaries between DNS politics and the IETF technical standardisation.
African Ministers IPR Conference Addresses Issues For African Creators 09/11/2015 by Sadibou Marone for Intellectual Property Watch and Babacar Dione for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment DAKAR, Senegal — The World Intellectual Property Organization 2015 African Ministerial Conference on Intellectual Property for Emerging Africa took place last week in Dakar, the Senegalese capital where around 50 ministers gathered as well as 200 participants. Among the many themes addressed, the conference called for better recognition of the rights of artists and creators. Musicians called for a strong musicians’ union to better defend their rights, advocating for a reform of African legislation on copyright. And Africa must boost its creativity and innovation to produce sports content by learning on what others are doing, panellists said.
WIPO Committee On Development Opens With Questions Of WIPO And UN SDGs 09/11/2015 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment The implementation of the UN World Intellectual Property Organization Development Agenda ranked high in the opening statements of developing country delegates attending this week’s Committee on Development and Intellectual Property. The participation of WIPO in the broader UN Sustainable Development Goals was also raised.
Could Cross-Border Extended Collective Licensing Open Digital Treasure Troves? 09/11/2015 by Dugie Standeford for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Libraries and archives are increasingly important in the digital era, but without better access to their vast reservoirs of data and materials for research and education, “we are going to lose out,” Anne Leer, World Intellectual Property Organization deputy director general, culture and creative industries sector, said at a conference hosted this week by the National Library of Sweden and Stockholm University. The 5-6 November event looked at whether cross-border copyright collective rights management might be an effective mechanism for accessing digital archives and libraries.
Key Issues At This Week’s WIPO Committee On IP And Development Meeting 08/11/2015 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment The World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) meets this week with a full agenda, including guides on trademark licensing, open innovation networks, and IP commercialisation. Delegates are expected to approve new development project proposals and progress reports on existing projects. Also on the agenda is the spicy issue of coordination of the WIPO Development Agenda.