Francis Gurry, the Director of the UN's WIPO, claims the web would have been better if Tim Berners-Lee had patented HTML and licensed it. He does so on camera and in front of shocked members of the Internet Society and CERN. Ironically, exactly this thought experiment came up for the web's 20th birthday on this August 6th.

For a more rigorous perspective, three Boston University School of Law faculty have shown that lawsuits by non-practicing entities, aka patent trolls, have cost technology companies half a trillion dollars of lost wealth over the past two decades, with little benefit to small inventors, instead reducing the incentive to innovate. [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges on Oct 9, 2011 - 80 comments

Isaac Eiland-Hall wins WIPO case, hands domain name over to ... Glenn Beck? [more inside]
posted by ZenMasterThis on Nov 6, 2009 - 75 comments

Sometimes WIPO get it right... One of the latest UDRP decisions says that Aberzombie.com is 'an obvious parody' and shouldn't be transferred to Abercrombie and Fitch. What's most interesting here is that the Aberzombie site is trading on its similarity - selling 'Aberzombie' shirts amongst other things. That's usually enough for WIPO to snatch the domain straight back - but no: Although "zombie" preceded by "aber" might call to mind the Complainants’ marks, especially in the context of the Respondent’s business of selling t-shirts, the Panel finds that the public would not confuse the Respondent for the Complainants, and thus Abercrombie and Aberzombie are not confusingly similar. How refreshingly sensible! Also interesting: WIPO have now notched up 5,000 UDRP domain name disputes. (via BNA's Internet Law News email)
posted by humuhumu on Jun 12, 2003 - 0 comments

Outside of traditional IP structures, there has been ongoing research by WIPO and other organizations to develop a system of remuneration for the use of Traditional Knowledge and Folklore. How could lines be drawn fairly so indigenous cultures could see some kind of return? If you think it's fair to compensate a tribe for technological and pharmaceutical contributions to patents, what about a royalty for that Maori tattoo design on your shoulder? What about drumming styles that have localized roots somewhere in Africa? What would you say is reasonable?
posted by anathema on Jul 9, 2002 - 28 comments