Protecting And Promoting Copyright Balance In NAFTA 04/03/2018 by Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment The ongoing NAFTA renegotiation presents a prime opportunity to move the ball on protecting and promoting general public interest copyright exceptions. All three countries have such exceptions to varying degree. And all three are under threat from an agenda to cabin their use through international law. NAFTA negotiators can and should include the best models from prior international agreements that protect and promote the ability of countries to have general exceptions, writes Professor Sean Flynn.
WHO Joint Tropical Disease Program Issues Report On Research Fairness 02/03/2018 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment The World Health Organisation’s Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) has published the first report on research fairness under a new initiative. The report includes an analysis of how TDR manages intellectual property rights in a positive way.
EU Commission Proposes Measures Against Illegal Online Content Including IP Infringement 01/03/2018 by William New, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment The European Commission today recommended a set of operational measures against a wide range of online content considered illegal, lumping intellectual property rights-infringing material in with that of terrorists, child sexual abusers, hate speech, and commercial scams.
Section 1201 Rulemaking – The Process Is Moving Along 28/02/2018 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment Dave Davis writes: Section 1201 is a curious little section of the US Copyright Act, added by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998. But the matter covered in that section is of great importance in our digital age and, due to its triennial rulemaking requirement, ‘1201’ exceptions are a topic of considerable discussion every few years. As it turns out, 2018 is one of those years.
Authors’ Group Study: Copyright Safe Harbour Provisions Distort Market 28/02/2018 by Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment Copyright “safe harbour” rules aimed at ensuring the free flow of information by internet service providers without liability for infringing content are “distorting the digital market, profiting tech giants and leading to significant underpayment of copyright owners,” according to an international authors’ industry association study released this week.
WTO, WHO, WIPO Heads Share Views On Innovation And Access At Trilateral Symposium 27/02/2018 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment How to encourage health innovations and make sure that new medicines, vaccines, or diagnostics will reach every person who needs them? That is a question which has been hotly debated in different fora. Yesterday, the World Trade Organization, UN World Health Organization, and UN World Intellectual Property Organization jointly held a symposium on how innovative technologies can promote the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The WHO director general called on his colleagues to support policies facilitating access to health technologies.
Swiss Panel Looks At Value-Based Drug Pricing, Link Between R&D And Prices 26/02/2018 by Catherine Saez and William New, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment Some products are too cheap, generic drug companies do not invest in them because they do not make enough money out of them. Others seem astronomically expensive, and are said to include the costs of all research, successes and failures alike. Panellists at a recent Swiss-organised expert event in Bern concurred that something must done about pricing, and explored some surprising ways to do it.
Rising Patent Applications – And Challenges – For New Technologies, Artificial Intelligence 22/02/2018 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment The steady increase in innovations relating to new digital technologies, in particular technologies using artificial intelligence, is matched by an upward patenting trend. The European Patent Office recently issued a study on the subject and is preparing a conference in May, while the World Intellectual Property Organization is working on its own in-depth study. However, the current patent system might not be ready for artificial intelligence-related inventions, according to a global standards-setting body.
Patenting Artificial Intelligence Might Hamper Progress, EFF Says 22/02/2018 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment The Electronic Frontier Foundation launched a project last year to measure progress in artificial intelligence innovations and understand the legal, political, and technical issues potentially raised by those inventions. Some eight months later, the project has tracked rapid progress of those technologies, in particular in machine learning. According to the foundation, patents might be hampering the progress of artificial intelligence, and with the risk of patent trolls claiming rights on patents on machine learning systems.
Professor Tells UN, Governments Of Coming “Tsunami” Of Data And Artificial Intelligence 21/02/2018 by William New, Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment NEW YORK — Technology is moving so fast it could cause harm to humans even as it brings remarkable advances unless governments act, an Israeli professor and visionary thinker told a gathering of government and United Nations representatives here last week. A hint? In the next five years we are all going to be cyborgs. In fact most of us already are.