World IP Day
The World IP Day has been celebrated on 26 April since the year 2000. On this day, IPI traditionally announces the most remarkable events in the past year, positively or negatively impacting the IP field. Due to extreme circumstances brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic, the field of IP saw numerous events, initiatives and calls for adaptation being brought forward.
Thus, IPI puts forward the following events as the most noticeable:
- Numerous individuals and organizations representing researchers, educators and students sent an open letter to WIPO, urging for action to be taken in order to ensure that copyright systems in the Member States offer support in tackling the Coronavirus outbreak and its consequences (more in our post “Open letter: WIPO should react to COVID-19 accordingly”);
- LIBER (Association of European Research Libraries) published a statement, calling upon EU Member States’ governments, European Commissioners, publishers, authors and their trade bodies to enable open and remote access to educational and research materials in order to properly react to changes introduced with the new coronavirus pandemic (more in our post “LIBER calls for open access to knowledge during the pandemic”);
- Distant learning and access problems, occurring due to the pandemic, clearly indicated why the new EU Copyright Directive 2019/790 implementation needs to be fast and good (more in our post “Extraordinary conditions show the necessity for fast and good implementation of the new Directive”);
- Strict governmental measures adopted as the answer to the coronavirus pandemic raised important questions, whether the current situation demands that we renounce our privacy rights (more in our post “Fighting the pandemic by renouncing our privacy?”).
Among all, the most noticeable event is the “Open COVID Pledge”, which is already producing tangible results. Under the auspices of Creative Commons, the international coalition of scientists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and individuals organized an “Open COVID Pledge”, calling upon rightsholders to enable open access to their Intellectual Property during the pandemic in order to help curb the virus spread. IPI has already supported the “Open COVID Pledge” (more in our post “Open COVID Pledge”).
We here at IPI hope that everyone gets through these difficult times as soon as possible and that we learn to understand the importance of open access to knowledge and the ability to freely use knowledge for research and education for the benefit of our society as a whole.
The 43rd session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (hereinafter SCCR) made substantial progress on the issues advocated by the A2K Coalition (Access to Knowledge Coalition), which IPI is a member of. This year’s session was the most productive on the issues of exceptions and limitations. James Love (Knowledge Ecology International), a long-time observer at WIPO, described the outcome and the impact of the public interest community as the strongest since the conclusion of the Marrakech Treaty, which brought global copyright exceptions for the benefit of the blind and visually impaired.
Today, March 17, 2023, a symposium on law in the information society is taking place in the golden lecture hall of the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana. Dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič will present copyright aspects of artificial intelligence at the symposium.
The third day of the 43rd session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights is intended for discussion on the topic of exceptions and limitations to copyright, especially in connection with the right to research.
The 43rd session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR/43) is being held in Geneva from March 13 to 17, 2023. The Intellectual Property Institute has a permanent observer status at WIPO since 2022 and is also a member of the Access to Knowledge Coalition (A2K coalition).