Type | Daily Blogs/Monthly Reporter |
---|---|
Format | 16 page reporter/online articles |
Editor | William New |
Founded | 2004 |
Political alignment | Neutral |
Headquarters | Geneva, Switzerland |
ISSN | 1661-7355 |
Website | www.ip-watch.org |
Intellectual Property Watch is a Geneva-based publication reporting on policy issues and influences relating to international organizations (IOs), especially those in Geneva such as the World Intellectual Property Organization, World Trade Organization, World Health Organization and International Telecommunication Union. It also follows policy developments outside Geneva, and does some investigative reporting.
Besides almost daily articles and occasional special columns, they publish a monthly reader about intellectual property and the policies that affect it.
IP-Watch is an editorially independent news agency whose startup funding came from several sources, the MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, [1] and the Open Society Institute. [2] Currently[ when? ], they accept subscription fees for their Monthly Reporter and a subscriber-only online content area, but do not take anonymous donations nor donations from any private corporations, except in the form of subscriptions to their reporting services. [3] Most of their online content is open access, published under the Creative Commons license.
Intellectual Property Watch has no formal owner, and their board of directors meets twice a year to discuss business and legal matters. [4]
On their website, they openly present both industry and industry critics in their "Inside Views" section. They also provide interested developing countries with free copies of their newsletter.
Their founder and board chair is Carolyn Deere. [3]
IP-Watch, represented by Yale Law School's Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, is suing the United States Trade Representative to compel disclosure of documents pertaining to the Trans-Pacific Partnership under the Freedom of Information Act. [5]
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The most well-known types are copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. The modern concept of intellectual property developed in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. The term "intellectual property" began to be used in the 19th century, though it was not until the late 20th century that intellectual property became commonplace in the majority of the world's legal systems.
The World Intellectual Property Organization is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to promote and protect intellectual property (IP) across the world by cooperating with countries as well as international organizations. It began operations on 26 April 1970 when the convention entered into force. The current Director General is Singaporean Daren Tang, former head of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, who began his term on 1 October 2020.
Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to strengthen individual rights and freedoms by defining, promoting, and influencing technology policy and the architecture of the Internet.
World Intellectual Property Day is observed annually on 26 April. The event was established by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2000 to "raise awareness of how patents, copyright, trademarks and designs impact on daily life" and "to celebrate creativity, and the contribution made by creators and innovators to the development of societies across the globe". 26 April was chosen as the date for World Intellectual Property Day because it coincides with the date on which the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization entered into force in 1970.
The Access to Knowledge (A2K) movement is a loose collection of civil society groups, governments, and individuals converging on the idea that access to knowledge should be linked to fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development.
Michael Allen Geist is a Canadian academic, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa and a member of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society. Geist was educated at the University of Western Ontario, Osgoode Hall Law School, where he received his Bachelor of Laws, Cambridge University, where he received a Master of Laws, and Columbia Law School, where he received a Master of Laws and Doctor of Law degree. He has been a visiting professor at universities around the world including the University of Haifa, Hong Kong University, and Tel Aviv University. He is also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.
The Gowers Review of Intellectual Property was an independent review of UK intellectual property (IP) focusing on UK copyright law that was published in December 2006. The then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown commissioned Andrew Gowers to lead the review in December 2005. The Review was published on 6 December 2006 as part of the Chancellor's annual pre-budget report. The review concludes that the UK's intellectual property system is fundamentally strong but made 54 recommendations for improvements.
The IP Federation is a United Kingdom industry intellectual property trade association. It was founded in 1920 as an industry organization that provides input representing its members' interests in the United Kingdom and international intellectual property rule-making process. It celebrated its centenary on 23 April 2020.
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh is the chairman and founder of the international Jordan-based organisation, the Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization (TAG-Org). Dubbed as the godfather of Arab accounting, Abu-Ghazaleh has also been credited for promoting the significance of Intellectual Property in the Arab World.
Francis Gurry is an Australian national, who was from 2008 to 2020 the fourth Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). During that time, he was also Secretary-General of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). Gurry also served as a Deputy Director General of WIPO from 2003 to 2008.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a multilateral treaty for the purpose of establishing international standards for intellectual property rights enforcement that did not enter into force. The agreement aims to establish an international legal framework for targeting counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on the Internet, and would create a new governing body outside existing forums, such as the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the United Nations.
The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international legal agreement between all the member nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It establishes minimum standards for the regulation by national governments of different forms of intellectual property (IP) as applied to nationals of other WTO member nations. TRIPS was negotiated at the end of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) between 1989 and 1990 and is administered by the WTO.
Copyright infringement is the use of works protected by copyright law without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works. The copyright holder is typically the work's creator, or a publisher or other business to whom copyright has been assigned. Copyright holders routinely invoke legal and technological measures to prevent and penalize copyright infringement.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is a registered charity based in Cambridgeshire, England. It states that its remit is "to minimise the availability of online sexual abuse content, specifically child sexual abuse images and videos hosted anywhere in the world and non-photographic child sexual abuse images hosted in the UK." Content inciting racial hatred was removed from the IWF's remit after a police website was set up for the purpose in April 2011. The IWF used to also take reports of criminally obscene adult content hosted in the UK. This was removed from the IWF's remit in 2017. As part of its function, the IWF says that it will "supply partners with an accurate and current URL list to enable blocking of child sexual abuse content". It has "an excellent and responsive national Hotline reporting service" for receiving reports from the public. In addition to receiving referrals from the public, its agents also proactively search the open web and deep web to identify child sexual abuse images and videos. It can then ask service providers to take down the websites containing the images or to block them if they fall outside UK jurisdiction.
Victoria Angelica Espinel is the president and chief executive of the software industry trade group BSA.
The PROTECT IP Act was a proposed law with the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to "rogue websites dedicated to the sale of infringing or counterfeit goods", especially those registered outside the U.S. The bill was introduced on May 12, 2011, by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and 11 bipartisan co-sponsors. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that implementation of the bill would cost the federal government $47 million through 2016, to cover enforcement costs and the hiring and training of 22 new special agents and 26 support staff. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill, but Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) placed a hold on it.
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a progressive nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. CMD publishes PR Watch, SourceWatch, and ALECexposed.org.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a controversial United States bill introduced by U.S. Representative Lamar S. Smith (R-TX) to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to combat online copyright infringement and online trafficking in counterfeit goods. Provisions included the requesting of court orders to bar advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with infringing websites, and web search engines from linking to the websites, and court orders requiring Internet service providers to block access to the websites. The proposed law would have expanded existing criminal laws to include unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content, imposing a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
The Copyright Alliance is a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501(c)(4) organization representing artistic creators across a broad range of copyright disciplines.
The Intellectual Property Agency of Armenia (AIPA) is the patent office of Armenia. The agency works under the supervision of the Ministry of Economy of Armenia and is tasked with granting patent and IP address protections, trademarks, and copyrights for objects of industrial property, inventions and usage patterns, industrial design, and commercial and service marks, among others.