The new Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) will establish its office in Riga, Latvia, it has been announced. The regulatory body, berec.europa.eu, is made up of the heads of the 27 national telecommunications regulators and is assisted by an office to be based in Riga. It also was decided this week that […]

The stalled Doha Round trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization will become important again once the current economic stimuli wear off, Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), told members of the Association of Correspondents Accredited to the United Nations (ACANU) in Geneva today. “Times are now a bit […]

The European Union today said half of its productivity gains since 1995 have come from information and communications technology (ICT), and gave some signals about its digital agenda to the year 2020, as part of a broader plan to be “launched shortly.” Europe remains the world’s biggest broadband market, the EU said, but must improve. […]

World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy has answered a letter from members of the European Parliament asking that the WTO provide an “expert assessment and analysis of the current provision” of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) under negotiation. In his 4 May reply to the Parliament members’ letter dated 15 April, Lamy said “I […]

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) has launched its “Developing World Health Partnerships Directory” for 2010. The directory details long-term (more than one year) public-private partnerships to improve health in developing countries. According to the report, available here, IFPMA members started 23 new partnerships in 2009, 11 more new programmes than the […]

The Chennai Patent Office in India last week overturned the patent on Valganciclovir, an expensive drug used to prevent an infection to which people with HIV/AIDS or organ recipients are susceptible, an Indian lawyers’ group said today. The patent office decided that the patent held by Swiss company Roche lacked inventive step and did not […]

A new economically driven effort called the Copyright for Creativity Initiative is advocating the harmonisation of copyright exceptions across Europe, and is calling on the European Commission to act upon its 2008 Green Paper “Copyright in the Knowledge Economy” [pdf]. The initiative today released a declaration entitled “Copyright for Creativity – A Declaration for Europe,” […]

By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch All the “noble announcements” made by EU and US officials about respect for the Doha Declaration on intellectual property trade and public health when negotiating the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) does not match the ACTA text, warned Ashutosh Jindal, adviser at the Embassy of India to the EU […]

An annual report from the Office of the United States Trade Representative on how well it considers other countries to be protecting and enforcing American intellectual property rights is now available. The so-called Special 301 report can be read here [pdf]. This year it praises several recent initiatives to strengthen IP internationally, including the Anti-Counterfeiting […]