US Government On Internet Control: ICANN Can Go, IANA Is Ours 28/07/2006 by Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch The United States government does not want to retain “all [its] historic roles” in the technical oversight of the Internet domain name system (DNS), a senior Bush administration official said this week. But while it might let go of the coordination role for names such as those ending […]
WHO IP Working Group To Address Conflicting Interests Before December Meeting 25/07/2006 by Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment An intergovernmental working group on public health and intellectual property, which the World Health Assembly said in May should be set up “immediately,” is scheduled to meet for the first time in December in Geneva, according to informed sources. But apparently it is no easy task for the World Health Organization (WHO) to coordinate the […]
WTO Doha Round Suspended Indefinitely, IP Issues May Be Kept On Table 24/07/2006 by Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment After some five years of negotiations, the World Trade Organization (WTO) free-trade talks were halted today as ministers of key countries left the negotiating table. But key intellectual property issues will be kept on the table for whenever they return, sources said. Ministers of six key members – Australia, Brazil, the European Union, India, Japan […]
G8 Outcome Has IP Implications For Enforcement, Trade and Health 19/07/2006 by Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment This week’s Group of Eight (G8) meeting in Saint Petersburg, Russia highlighted piracy and counterfeiting as one area in which G8 is determined to step up its effort, but it also made commitments to improve access to medicines for infectious diseases and to fulfil the development objective of the current world trade talks. Separately, German […]
UK Music Groups Seek Copyright Licences and Levies for Digital Content 13/07/2006 by Dugie Standeford for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment By Dugie Standeford for Intellectual Property Watch The United Kingdom independent music sector wants content distributors to pay creators for transmitting their works over the Internet, mobile phones and other devices. At a 12 July London roundtable headed by the Association of Independent Music (AIM), indie labels, composers, songwriters, musicians, managers, publishers and collecting societies […]
European Commission Fines Microsoft €280.5 Million In Antitrust Case 12/07/2006 by Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment BRUSSELS – The European Commission today fined Microsoft €280.5 million ($356.35 million) for failing to comply with a 2004 Commission request to provide documents that would make it easier for other companies to develop products that would be interoperable with Microsoft’s products. This is the first time in the European Union’s 49-year-long history that it […]
EU IP Enforcement Directive Questioned On Procedure 11/07/2006 by Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch 6 Comments By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch Procedural questions could kill a proposed European Union directive aimed at fighting theft of products, patents and copyrights, after the Dutch Parliament raised jurisdictional objections last week. At issue is the planned EU directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights [COM(2006) 168 […]
Governments and Intellectual Property Community Fight For Open Whois Access 06/07/2006 by Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch Should everybody who registers an Internet domain name be forced to publish his private address, email address and phone number on the Internet? A storm broke out over the question of the so-called Whois data at the meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) […]
MSF: Patent Monopoly Hinders Developing Countries’ Access To New HIV/AIDS Medicine 06/07/2006 by Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment A monopoly by a single pharmaceutical company on a new medicine for HIV/AIDS has limited access to the medicine to a select group of patients in developing countries, a non-profit group said today. The product is lopinavir/ritonavir (Kaletra) and is only produced by the pharmaceutical company Abbott Laboratories, which holds the patent for the product, […]
Indonesia Strives To Acquire Bird Flu Medicines Despite No Patent 05/07/2006 by Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen for Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment With eight recently confirmed cases of avian influenza, Indonesia is scrambling to build up its stockpile of medicines. The preferred product to fight bird flu in humans is not under patent in Indonesia, which raises questions as to why production has been off to a slow start in the country. Roche, the Swiss producer of […]