Super Powers For the New Officer of Copyright Enforcement

On October 13, 2008, the former "Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act" was passed into law under a new name: “The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act ”.  Such Act aims to consolidate federal efforts to combat copyright infringement under the White House’s direction.  In particular, The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act establishes within the executive branch the position of intellectual property enforcement coordinator (IPEC), who will be appointed by the President and will report directly to the President and the Congress regarding domestic and international intellectual property enforcement programs. If you have chance to read through the Act, take a note of the number of tasks the IPEC will perform...  I suppose this is why the IPEC is already known as the Copyright Tzar .

KIDS Act Passed Into Law

The Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2008 is now law.  The KIDS Act provides for an information exchange between the Attorney General and the social networking sites, in order to prevent known sexual predators from accessing such websites.  In particular, Attorney General shall establish and maintain a secure system that permits social networking websites to compare the information contained in the National Sex Offender Registry with the Internet identifiers of users of the social networking websites.  The new law has been promptly embraced by Facebook.     

USA Ratifies the Singapore Treaty

The United States of America on October 1, 2008 ratified the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks.

The Singapore Treaty deals mainly with procedural aspects of trademark registration and licensing and introduces greater flexibilities and efficiencies into the delivery of trademark registration services. By eliminating red tape, enabling trademark authorities to take advantage of modern communications technologies, and further simplifying and standardizing trademark office procedures, the Treaty promises to reduce transaction costs for brand owners. 

The Treaty explicitly recognizes that trademarks are no longer limited to two dimensional labels on products and specifically mentions new types of marks such as hologram marks, and non-visible signs, such as sound or taste marks. 

The Treaty also establishes common rules for the recording, amendment and cancellation of trademark licenses. The Treaty also introduces new mandatory relief measures for trademark office procedures in order to alleviate procedural mistakes by trademark applicants, notably, missed time limits, which, if not remedied, could be detrimental to trademark rights.  WIPO Press Room 

WIPO Reports Increased Internationalization of Patent Filings

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recently published  World Patent Report 2008.  The report, based on 2006 figures, shows that patents granted worldwide increased by 18%, with 727,000 patents granted in 2006 alone.  According to these statistics, the total number of patents in force worldwide at the end of 2006 was approximately 6.1 million.

The Report also shows that North East Asian countries (mainly China and the Republic of Korea) and the United States of America led the overall growth in worldwide filing of patent applications.  According to the Director General of WIPO, Dr. Kamil Idris "this reflects a consolidation of earlier trends which demonstrate a marked shift in innovation hubs around the world.” 

The increased internationalization of patent activity is demonstrated - according the Report -  by the growth in international filings through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), the multilateral agreement administered by WIPO which provides a simplified method for international patent filing.  The number of international patent application submitted via the PCT in 2007 is estimated to be 158,400, representing a 5.9% increase over the previous year.  

The statistics, however, confirm a certain concentration of the innovative activity, since the Report pointed out to a growing tendency for traditional applicants to file their applications in multiple countries.  In fact, the USA keeps being by far the largest user of the PCT system.  In 2006, 33.6% of all PCT filings originated from the USA, almost twice that of the next largest user, Japan, which accounted for 17.5% of all PCT filings.