Trade Outlook In 2015: The Race Of The Mega-Regionals 04/03/2015 by Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment For international trade, 2015 will be “a year of work” rather than of finalisation, as Viviane Reding put it. The comment of the former European Commission vice president and Justice Commissioner focussed on the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), as she is now the European Parliament’s rapporteur for TISA. The services agreement is still sailing under the radar compared to its bigger cousins, the US-EU bilateral Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). Yet “a year of work” might well describe the 2015 agenda for the mega-regional trade negotiations too. Will any of them get to the finish line? A race is on in which the United States and European Union seem to anxiously look to China’s advance while fighting rising opposition at home.
Researchers Find Liberalised Google Keywords Not Harmful To Trademarks 22/02/2015 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment A Swiss-US team of researchers is challenging the “belief that the granting of property rights is necessary in order to overcome information asymmetries and other market failures in consumer markets,” a core concept in the fight over trademark protection on the internet.
European Parliament Votes For Renewal Of Mandate For Internet Governance Forum 11/02/2015 by Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch 2 Comments The European Parliament today adopted a resolution calling on the UN General Assembly to renew the mandate of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), while strengthening its resources and the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance.
Political Windows Open And Close, Says ICANN President; Seeks End Of Prep For IANA Transition 10/02/2015 by Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment At the opening of this week’s 52nd meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Singapore, the ICANN leadership supported by former President Bill Clinton aide Ira Magaziner, pushed for urgency in finalising the proposal for the future oversight of the private names and numbers regime.
The Year Ahead In Internet Governance: Of Competing Institutions, IANA Transition, And A New Crypto War 25/01/2015 by Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment For many years Electronic Frontier Foundation Policy Analyst Jeremy Malcolm has been predicting the next year would be the pivotal year for the UN-led Internet Governance Forum (IGF). With the NetMundial Initiative being constructed these coming months and governments having not yet agreed to prolong the IGF mandate, the decade-old forum might be challenged to either move or become just one of many internet governance conference venues. And while some hope the future oversight over the internet’s underlying IANA function could become an experiment in shared global governance, others point out that more and more of the interesting questions of internet politics are decided elsewhere: national governments, trade negotiators, big data giants and cyberdominance strategists.
TISA Negotiations: Yes To E-Commerce, Data Flows, No To IPR, Data Protection? 17/12/2014 by Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment After two years of negotiations, the draft Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) stands at 17 horizontal and sector-specific proposals, negotiators told Intellectual Property Watch after the 2-5 December Geneva round of negotiations. The sector-specific annexes of the agreement, sources confirm, include one on telecommunication and one all e-commerce aspects.
ITU Plenipotentiary Outcome Limiting UN Agency Role In Internet Governance Deemed “Success” 10/11/2014 by Intellectual Property Watch 2 Comments US Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda on the eve of the final celebration of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference last week said he was “happy” about the results. Asked what he thought was the most important resolution of the three week conference, he told Intellectual Property Watch he would not name one resolution, but rather considered the achievement of overall consensus by the ITU member states on the final documents “a success.”
ITU Plenipotentiary Conference: Internet Governance Diplomacy On Display 05/11/2014 by Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch 2 Comments The much belaboured takeover of the internet by the United Nations International Telecommunication Union again has not taken place. Instead, ITU member states gathered at the Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan, South Korea, this week rather smoothly passed a set of internet-related resolutions that will, once the closing plenary adopts them, preserve the limited status quo of involvement of the UN organisation responsible for telecommunication and radio frequencies in internet-related public policy issues.
UN Internet Governance Forum Sees New Challengers, From Top Down And Bottom Up 08/09/2014 by Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch 5 Comments ISTANBUL – The Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow in the end somehow reconnected the 9th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and the new Internet Ungovernance Forum held in Istanbul last week. The nearly decade-old UN-led IGF initiative is facing profound new challenges as the global split widens over the future of the internet.
Libraries Can Digitise Books Without Consent, European Advocate General Says 05/06/2014 by Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment Libraries can digitise individual books in their collections without the consent of rights holders, the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice, Niilo Jääskinen, has written in his application in a case (C-117/13) pending at the Luxembourg Court.