In February, I asked whether Free Software is a reason for trade war. A US lobby group, the IIPA, was pressing the US government to punish countries that make use of Free Software by giving them tougher trade deals. Now the US Trade Representative has just published the 2010 Special 301 report [pdf] (USTR). It Read more »
This incident goes to show that not even the biggest companies with
the largest armies of lawyers can consider themselves safe from the
damage that software patents do.
Last week brought truly good news. After two years of negotiations, it looks like the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) may finally turn into an organisation that works for the interest of society at large, rather than just those of a small group of major holders of intellectual monopolies. Last week’s meeting of the “Provisional Read more »
It’s been a harrowing day, and I’m not even near Geneva, where the negotiations on a WIPO broadcasting treaty went through some ups and downs today. After yesterday’s session, it looked as if the treaty would be gone for good, as numerous delegations had piled in to make new demands just before closing time. Today, Read more »
IP-Watch reports that Sisule Musungu, a key expert of the international community discussing copyright and patent reform, has been asked to leave his position yesterday without warning. He was the head of the South Centre’s Innovation and Access to Knowledge programme. In this function, he worked hard to give more weight to the interests of Read more »
Discussions on the WIPO Development Agenda, an effort to make WIPO comply with its UN mission and focus on development, have dragged on for quite a while now without making much headway. No one doubts that this is due to opposition from developed countries, who are the ones profiting from the grossly imbalanced global system Read more »
A judge in Santander, Pais Vasco Cantabria, Spain, has ruled that a man who had been sharing music files on the Internet has not commited a crime, as El Mundo reports (in Spanish). Instead, his activities were found to be protected by the Spanish right to make private copies. The sentence says that considering filesharing Read more »
heise.de (in German) reports that patent examiners at the European Patent Office (EPO) are protesting changes to the patent assessment process. The protests, which have been going on for a while, have repeatedly culminated in strikes. While EPO head Alain Pompidou publicly touts high quality of patents as his goal, it seems that in reality Read more »
Here’s another gem from the WIPO meetings on a Development Agenda, which followed the proposal of 14 developing countries (the "Friends of Development") for WIPO to steer away from bluntly foisting IMP maximalism upon everyone, in serfdom to rich-country rightsholders. This time, it’s not the quote that is absurd, but rather the text it refers Read more »
Though I really shouldn’t be blogging, I can’t help it (this might provide a hint as to why). Currently, I am evaluating tons of WIPO papers from the first round of the Development Agenda debate (2005) for my master’s thesis. Some (actually most) of these have some amazing soundbites. If you think about them for Read more »