WTO Members To Consider Review Of TRIPS Public Health Amendment 11/02/2010 by Kaitlin Mara for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment A waiver to World Trade Organization rules intended to aid people in poor countries in gaining access to medicines has remained essentially unused in the over six-and-a-half years since it was put in place. On Friday, member states of the WTO will in an informal meeting discuss this situation and see what, if anything, needs be done.
First-Ever Drop In Filings Under Patent Cooperation Treaty Seen In 2009 08/02/2010 by Kaitlin Mara for Intellectual Property Watch 3 Comments International patent filings under the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Patent Cooperation Treaty fell for the first time in three decades in 2009, owing to a deep economic downturn, WIPO officials said today. Overall patent filings fell 4.5 percent in 2009, but industrialised nations were particularly hard-hit, and are also expected to have slower growth rates in 2010 than emerging economies.
Google Book Deal Still Needs Work, US Justice Department Says 05/02/2010 by William New, Intellectual Property Watch 2 Comments The United States Department of Justice yesterday told the US District Court for the Southern District of New York that progress had been made on its concerns in the settlement allowing internet search giant Google to scan millions of books into a database. But the government lawyers continue to have doubts on copyright, class certification and antitrust issues, they said.
Breakdown In WIPO Patent Committee Could Symbolise Deeper Differences 01/02/2010 by Kaitlin Mara for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment No agreement could be reached at last week’s meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization committee on patents, a sign of still-deep rifts in what countries want from the global patent system.
ACTA Negotiators Report No Breakthroughs On Transparency 31/01/2010 by William New, Intellectual Property Watch 2 Comments Offering no details – as is their standard – government negotiators for a global anticounterfeiting treaty yesterday declared a commitment to try to find ways to increase transparency and inclusion of public input in the secretive talks. But they stopped short of actually committing to increasing transparency and inclusion.
Panel: Standards Aid Innovation, But Only If Open 29/01/2010 by Kaitlin Mara for Intellectual Property Watch 3 Comments Standards are vitally important to innovation but in order for them to serve their purpose effectively, they must be open, said a panel at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week.
ICANN Head Sounds Policy Alarm On Rapidly Shrinking Internet Space 29/01/2010 by Sharon McLoone for Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment WASHINGTON, DC – The internet’s technical governing body plans to make a push to educate the global users of the internet on the network’s latest generation technology known as IPv6, Rod Beckstrom, president and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), said this week.
Latest WIPO Draft Shows Options For Work Programme On Patents 28/01/2010 by Kaitlin Mara for Intellectual Property Watch and William New Leave a Comment The latest available text on future work at the World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on the Law of Patents is available from the IP Watch website. The draft emerged this evening.
New Parliament Group Monitors EU Trade Pacts’ Impact On Poor’s Medicines Access 28/01/2010 by David Cronin for Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment BRUSSELS – Trade agreements must not contain clauses on intellectual property rights that could imperil the poor’s access to affordable medicines, a veteran member of the European Parliament (MEP) has said.
Global Anti-Counterfeiting Efforts Set To Rise Further 27/01/2010 by Liza Porteus Viana, Intellectual Property Watch 8 Comments NEW YORK – The problem of global counterfeiting has not diminished with the new year, experts said here yesterday, and 2010 promises to bring even more rampant intellectual property theft if countries do not do more to stem the problem. Some countries are mobilising to do just that.