Battle Rages Over WIPO DG As Staff Dissents, Africa Cries Racism 17/10/2007 by William New, Intellectual Property Watch 16 Comments By William New Hundreds of employees at the World Intellectual Property Organization, a prominent United Nations agency, have signed a petition calling on WIPO Director General Kamil Idris to put the organisation’s interests before his own in addressing allegations that he misrepresented his age on official documents and possibly engaged in other untoward activities. Idris […]
Canada, EU Acting On Public Health Exceptions To WTO IP Law 15/10/2007 by David Cronin for Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment By David Cronin for Intellectual Property Watch Canada has become the first country to notify the World Trade Organisation that it has allowed a drugs firm to use an international scheme for manufacturing generic versions of patented medicines introduced four years ago. Meanwhile, the European Union this week is continuing a debate over whether to […]
OECD Calibrates Role In Fast-Changing Internet Society 15/10/2007 by William New, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment OTTAWA – The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Paris-based club of 30 of the world’s largest economies, is moving fast to keep up with the newest trend on the Internet: user-generated content. Referred to generally as ‘Web 2.0’, this trend includes collaboratively developed websites such as Wikipedia and YouTube, social networking platforms such […]
US Requests Second WTO Panel On China’s IP Protection 11/10/2007 by David Cronin for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment By David Cronin for Intellectual Property Watch The United States has decided to step up its challenge to China’s restrictions on copyright-protected books, music and films by asking the World Trade Organization to establish a dispute settlement panel. During June and July, the US and China held formal talks over trade restrictions applied by the […]
EU Copyright Levies Extend To New Media As Harmonisation Lags 11/10/2007 by Alicia Martin-Santos for Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment By Alicia Martin-Santos and Dugie Standeford for Intellectual Property Watch European Union countries are imposing copyright levies on a whole new range of digital media, including digital music players, USB flash sticks, hard drives and, potentially, mobile phones and wireless connections, as efforts to harmonise Europe’s heterogeneous copyright landscape continue to languish. Copyright levies are imposed on blank material (such as blank CDs, DVDs or paper) or digital recording media (used to store digital content) in order to compensate authors for end-users’ private copying. They first appeared in the 1960s and were charged on paper, photocopying equipment and tapes. New recording media, such as mp3 players (like iPods) or even mobile phones are being examined for potential levying.
UN Talks On Public Health Access And Innovation Face Challenges 10/10/2007 by Paul Garwood for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment By Paul Garwood Next month’s round of negotiations on a United Nations plan to boost access to medicines for the world’s poor are set for a rough ride, with countries and regions split on contentious issues such as intellectual property rights and how to spur drug innovation for the benefit of all. The World Health […]
Open Letter From Staff To The Director General Of WIPO 08/10/2007 by Intellectual Property Watch 16 Comments Pour la version française, cliquer ici Where are you Director General? For the first time in WIPO’s history, the Assemblies were unable to agree on the adoption of the budget of the Organization. For the first time, the member states had to have recourse to a fratricidal vote on these questions and thereby to abandon […]
US Courts Swinging Toward Higher Threshold For Patentability 04/10/2007 by William New, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment By Steven Seidenberg for Intellectual Property Watch For years, the United States has appeared unusually generous towards patent applicants. The country has extended legal protection to many inventions, such as business methods, that typically are not patentable in Europe and other parts of the world. Now, however, America appears to be back-pedalling. Two recent court rulings in the United States have significantly cut back on the types of inventions that can patented in the country. And these decisions may be just the beginning. More court-imposed restrictions may be coming soon, according to some experts.
The Idris Dilemma And The WIPO Development Agenda 02/10/2007 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment By Sisule F. Musungu On Friday, 28th September 2007 the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) General Assembly finally adopted a development agenda for WIPO. The Assembly adopted a set of 45 proposals under six clusters, namely: technical assistance and capacity building; norm-setting, flexibilities and public domain; technology transfer, ICTs and access to knowledge; assessment, evaluation […]
WIPO Panel: Rights Management Information At Core Of IP Protection 01/10/2007 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment By Catherine Saez The growing volume of audiovisual, musical or text-based content online offers opportunities and challenges to copyright owners, intermediaries such as search engines, and users, according to panellists at a recent World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) seminar. Among the challenges are the ownership, licensing and management of intellectual property. Rights Management Information (RMI), as defined in the 1996 WIPO “Internet” treaties, identifies content protected by copyright or related rights, the rights owners for such content and the terms and conditions of use associated with it. RMI is playing an essential role in protecting copyrights in the network environment, according to panellists, most of whom were from an industry perspective.