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Beginning of a New Era for the Lisbon System

The 50th anniversary celebration of the Lisbon Agreement on the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration took place at a ceremony on October 31 in Lisbon. The ceremony rounded off a two-day Forum, co-hosted by WIPO and the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) of Portugal in the city which gave birth to the Agreement in 1958, after many years of difficult negotiations.

Famous Appellations of Origin

An appellation of origin is a special kind of geographical indication generally consisting of a geographical name or a traditional designation used on products which have a specific quality or characteristics that are essentially due to the geographical environment in which they are produced.

Sleeping Queens – Our Life in Cards

The holiday season is the perfect time for family and friends to gather around and play their favorite games – or try out a brand new one like Sleeping Queens.

Ammonia Synthesis – The double-edged sword

From France’s Nicolas Sarkozy to America’s President-elect Barack Obama world leaders are pointing to investment in emerging green technologies and research as the way ahead in boosting the world’s sagging economy and creating new jobs, suggesting programs equivalent to U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s.

Committee Meetings

After attempts to hammer out compromise texts on the future work program of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) faltered at the Committee’s 13th session, WIPO Director General Francis Gurry and the IGC Chairman, Ambassador Rigoberto Gauto Vielman of Paraguay, said they would pursue efforts to bridge differences among Member States to move the international negotiations forward.

In the News

Book Review

This volume grew out of two workshops held at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 2005 and 2006. It is interdisciplinary in its approach and addresses the following topics: legal and economic history, current positive law in the E.U. and the U.S., linguistics, marketing, sociology, law and economics, philosophy, anthropology and geography.

Intellectual Property Financing – An introduction

IP financing, or the use of IP assets (trade marks, design rights, patents and copyright) to gain access to credit, is gaining increasing attention in IP circles.

IP Financing: the Ten Commandments

This is Professor Jeremy Phillips’ second article for the WIPO Magazine (see A Day in the Life of an IP Blog-Meister, Issue 2/2008). In this article he lends a biblical cast to the “dos and don’ts” of IP Financing.

IP Financing - Implications of the UNCITRAL Process

Ben Goodger, International Head of IP Commercialization, Rouse & Co International, has many years experience in different areas of commercial law, including IP strategy and value maximization, high-technology, trademark protection/brand management and computer and Internet related law.

The Challenge of IP Financing

Lorin Brennan is a U.S. attorney specializing in international IP licensing and financing. He is currently Special Counsel to the Independent Film and Television Alliance and a member of the UNCITRAL Expert Committee on Intellectual Property Secured Financing.

In the Courts: Johnson & Johnson vs the American Red Cross

Red Cross organizations use as their symbol a reversal of the colors of the Swiss national flag, in tribute to Henri Dunant and the other founders of the original organization in Geneva.

Climate Change: China Innovating in the Clean Coal Technology Market

While coal is the number one source of energy for a great number of countries, it is highly polluting and generally vilified as a dirty form of power. Many efforts to clean up coal feature innovations in air pollution control and energy waste reduction.

Effective Outreach Campaigns: WIPO’s new tools at your fingertips

Big public relations outfits have a rough time at it.

Targeting Buyers of Counterfeit Goods

This article is a condensed version of the research paper, “Cost-Benefit Models of Stakeholders in the Global Counterfeiting Industry and Marketing Response Strategies,” by Lyn S. Amine and Peter Magnusson, which appeared in the Multinational Business Review, 15(2): 1-23 (2007).

STRAP and CLAMP – Nigeria Copyright Commission in Action

This article is part of our archive, offering insights from past editions. Continue reading to discover how intellectual property can foster creativity, innovation and social progress.

Digital Preservation and Copyright

This article, written by June M. Besek, Executive Director, Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts, Columbia University (pls chk) Law School, New York, highlights the difficulties in preserving digital works, created today and gone tomorrow, for future generations.