The China Patent & Trademark Office and the State Intellectual Property Office will be closed from 4 to 6 April for Tomb-sweeping Day, a celebration of ancestors, which falls this year on 4 April, according to an email from Hylands Law Firm in Beijing. Last year, the Chinese government made the Tomb-sweeping Day an official […]

Newly confirmed United States Commerce Secretary Gary Locke was asked some questions about patents during his nomination process in the Senate. The Commerce secretary oversees the US Patent and Trademark Office. Here are his responses [pdf], according to a Washington lobbying group.

The academic Internet Governance Project reports that the World Intellectual Property Organization – a key arbitration body for global internet domain disputes – appears to have registered a domain name using a name trademarked by someone else three years earlier. WIPO registered the name patentscape.info in 2008, after the mark patentscape was obtained in 2006 […]

Gary Locke was confirmed as the United States Commerce Secretary by a unanimous vote in the Senate Tuesday evening. Locke, a former Washington state governor and the first Chinese-American to hold the post, will inherit position shaped by the global recession, but was “honoured to take on this challenge and will work every day to […]

United Kingdom pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline on Tuesday reported on its corporate responsibility activities in 2008 and 2009, including a commitment to cutting prices on patented medicines for poor countries. GSK’s recent public announcement on access to medicines has generated some goodwill for the company though public health advocates and observers have been cautious in their […]

United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown was not able to watch the classic American movies presented to him by President Barack Obama thanks to digital rights management technologies, reported the UK press. The technology used in this particular case restricts the part of the world in which a DVD will play – the DVDs purchased […]

The United States Senate on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved the nomination of United States Trade Representative (USTR) designee Ron Kirk as the nation’s 16th trade representative, according to a USTR office release. As USTR, Kirk is member of President Obama’s Cabinet and serves as the President’s principal trade advisor, negotiator and spokesperson on trade issues. Kirk, […]

Outcry from concerned internet users over Australia’s attempts to censor ‘objectionable’ parts of the web has grown this week as internet-based depository for leaked documents Wikileaks reported that one of its pages is now banned in Australia. The page in question, a list of nearly 4,000 websites censored by the Danish government, was submitted to […]

The International Narcotics Control Board, which implements United Nations drug control conventions, has released a set of guidelines they say will help governments prevent the sale of controlled substances online. “Internet pharmacies can be accessed by anyone, anywhere who happens to be online,” observed INCB’s president, Hamid Ghodse. The concern is that such places are […]