Sara Kuepfer

Talking Intellectual Property This Week

Private property sign on unlocked door / photo: great sea, flickr

Intellectual property rights (IPR) were originally created to promote the advancement of science and the arts.

But does today’s IPR system serve the public good?

Our weekly theme this week tries to bring out the intense polarization of the debate over the purpose and usefulness of today’s intellectual property rights system.

Professor Ian Angell from the LSE provides an Analysis of the current state of IPR, arguing that IP legislation has become highly protectionist, stifles innovation and hinders free market competition.

In our podcast interview, patent attorney John Moetteli counters Angell’s main argument and explains how the patent system indeed encourages innovation in a competitive, capitalist system.

Security Watch articles about ‘green’ technology patents, the futility of digital rights management and much more.

Publications housed in our Digital Library, including analyses of IP-related issues in international trade agreements.

Primary Resources, including the WTO TRIPS Agreement.

Links to relevant websites, among them a database that provides access to national copyright and related rights legislation of UNESCO member states.

Our IR Directory with relevant organizations, such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

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Uncategorized

GOP – Quo Vadis?

Rocky Road sign / photo: Sara Kuepfer

Any successful political movement or party requires enlightened leadership. And especially after suffering political defeat, a self-critical evaluation of the party’s mistakes is needed to get the party back on its feet – and on a solid ideological footing.

I am not saying that the GOP lacks spokesmen. The diatribes of the Rush Limbaughs and the Sarah Palins are omnipresent. But I can’t see much leadership, not to mention an “enlightened” one.

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The Kremlin’s Love-Hate Relationship with the Internet

Vladimir Putin is watching you / Photo: Limbic, flickr

“On the internet 50 percent is porn material. Why should we refer to the internet?” This was Vladimir Putin’s answer to widespread claims on Russian internet websites that the October regional elections were rigged.

But while dismissing the internet as an irrelevant source of information, Putin does take the internet seriously when it comes to quieting his critics. Alexei Dymovsky, the police officer who spoke out publicly about widespread police corruption via YouTube, was duly arrested on Friday (and facing dubious charges).

At least on the surface, Putin’s younger successor Dmitry Medvedev seems to have a more positive approach to the internet as an information platform. Over a year ago, Medvedev proudly discovered the blog as a means of communication with the Russian public. Taking stock of his blogging experience on the occasion of his video blog‘s first anniversary, Medvedev draws the following, rather trite conclusion:

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Journalists in Haiti: Rescue Workers, First Aid Providers, Action Heroes?

Delmas, Haiti, January 16, 2010 / Photo: AIDG, flickr
Delmas, Haiti, January 16, 2010 / Photo: AIDG, flickr

In the critical 72 hours following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the country lacked almost everything: drinking water, food, basic medical supplies, doctors, lifting equipment, power generators, you name it.

But what it did not lack were journalists. A who’s who of reporters from the great cable networks like CNN and MSNBC were on the ground within hours.

This is not a problem in and of itself, had it not been for the fact that the airport outside of Port-au-Prince was partly damaged and over capacity. This caused long delays for rescue teams trying to land there. Some planes providing aid had to be turned away.

Journalists were in many cases the first people from outside the island to venture into the devastated alleyways of the capital city. Many of them took on an active role helping locals to pull earthquake victims out of the rubble. One CNN journalist reported that he gave his granola bar to a starving earthquake victim.

What these journalists-turned-emergency-rescuers did during those critical hours following the earthquake is nothing but human. If you see suffering and are in the position to help, lending a hand is not only the natural but also the ethical thing to do.

Still, it is my guess that the residents of Port-au-Prince would have preferred to see rescue workers with chain saws instead of journalists with camera equipment coming their way.

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Business and Finance

Mobile Phones Transform Development

Before the internet comes the mobile phone / Photo: Esthr, flickr

They are among the most underdeveloped countries in the world. Only a minority of their people has access to electricity. Clean drinking water remains a distant dream. Many of their children continue to die of diseases that have long become extinct here in the West or are easily preventable.

But in one area, developing countries are clearly ahead of the industrialized world: the use of mobile phone applications.

Three-quarters of the world’s mobile phones are believed to be owned by people in developing countries.

In Africa, more people own mobile phones (37 percent) than have access to electricity (25 percent). (Note: Phones are often charged using rather ingenious methods, such as old car batteries). According to one estimate, about a billion people, most of them in the developing world, don’t have a bank account but – guess what? – own a cell phone.

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