[Patents] from Greg Aharonian

[Bernard Lang Bernard.Lang@inria.fr]

excerpts ....

    --  GLOBAL PATENT TREATY PASSED AT WIPO
    --  PANEL: "THE INTERNET, PRIVACY AND THE OPEN SOURCE MOVEMENT"


----- Forwarded message from Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com> -----

Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2000 23:00:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com>
To: patent-news@world.std.com
Subject: PATNEWS: Dickens Y2K; WIPO; Coumbia Univ.; Trend Micro; Japan
    Patent Office
Precedence: list
Reply-To: patent-news@europe.std.com

                              ====================

    --  GLOBAL PATENT TREATY PASSED AT WIPO

Press Release PR/2000/222  
Geneva, June 1, 2000  

PATENT LAW TREATY IS FINALIZED  

Member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on
Thursday adopted by consensus an international treaty that will simplify
and streamline procedures for obtaining and maintaining a patent.  The
Patent Law Treaty (PLT), which opens for signature on June 2, 2000, will
enter into force once it has been ratified by ten countries.  

The PLT was finalized at a Diplomatic Conference that brought together
high-level representatives from some 150 states and met from May 11 to
June 2, 2000.  The treaty is the culmination of 5 years of negotiations
and is a major step towards further harmonization of patent law.  The PLT
promises to reduce the cost of patent protection and to make the process
more user friendly and widely accessible.  

WIPO Director General Dr. Kamil Idris welcomed the adoption of the PLT
and applauded delegates for the positive spirit of cooperation and
compromise that had prevailed during negotiations. "Successful completion
of the PLT is a major step in the broader process of reducing patent costs
around the world," said Dr. Idris. "The next step is to work towards
harmonization of legal substance, and eventually towards a single global
standard of protection," he added. 
 
The Director General pointed out that ultimately the biggest savings in
patent-related costs will come about when intellectual property offices
around the world are able to share results of search and examination
procedures. In past sessions of the Standing Committee on the Law of
Patents (SCP), and at the September 1999 session of the WIPO Assemblies,
a significant number of delegations expressed their wish to take up the
question of further harmonization of patent laws upon conclusion of the
PLT. This is reflected in the WIPO Program and Budget for the 2000-2001
biennium. The SCP will hold its next meeting in November 2000.  

Once it enters into force, the PLT will harmonize and streamline, on
a worldwide basis, formal patent procedures relating to national and
regional patent applications and maintenance of patents. Inventors 
seeking patent protection must as a first step meet certain formality 
requirements in order to avoid rejection of their application and a 
consequent loss of rights. These formalities currently vary from one 
country to another. In standardizing them, the PLT offers both inventors
and national and regional patent offices a number of advantages:  

    use of standardized forms and simplified procedures that reduce the 
    risk of error cost reductions for inventors, applicants and patent
    attorneys

    elimination of cumbersome and complicated procedures

    improved efficiency of patent offices and lower operating costs 

    possibility to introduce electronic filing of patent applications and 
    related communications

    reliance on a predictable maximum set of patent formalities in all
    countries party to the PLT (including the incorporation of provisions
    under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (the WIPO-administered
    international patent application system) regarding form or contents
    of an international application), resulting in easier access to
    foreign patent systems

    exceptions from mandatory representation

    enhanced legal certainty for applicants filing in their home country
    and abroad

    relief and re-instatement of rights in case of missing certain time
    limits

    possibility to obtain a filing date, even if the main part of the
    application (description) is filed in a foreign language  

The PLT achieves a major goal of international simplification by 
incorporating the requirements for PCT international applications into
national and regional laws. Thus, under the PLT, the requirements and
procedures for national and regional patent applications, and those for
PCT international applications, will be harmonized. This will eventually
lead to standardized formal requirements and streamlined procedures for
all patent applications worldwide.  

                              ====================

    --  PANEL: "THE INTERNET, PRIVACY AND THE OPEN SOURCE MOVEMENT"

PRESS RELEASE

"The Internet, Privacy and the Open Source Movement"

WHAT:   Panel discussions at the National Press Club to celebrate the
publication of three new books: Jeffrey Rosen, The Unwanted Gaze: The
Destruction of Privacy in America (Random House 2000); Robert Ellis Smith,
Ben Franklin's Web Site: Privacy and Curiosity from Plymouth Rock to the
Internet (Privacy Journal 2000); and Free For All: How Linux and The Free
Software Movement Undercut the High-Tech Titans (Harper Business 2000)

WHO:    The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and
        distinguished speakers

WHERE   National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor,
        Washington, DC 20045

DATE    Monday, June 5, 2000 TIME               8:00 - 11:00 a.m.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) will host a two-panel
event at the National Press Club to discuss privacy and the open source
movement and to celebrate new publications in these areas.  The panels
will feature distinguished authors, technical experts, professors in law
and public policy, and public interest advocates.

8:00            Registration

8:45 - 9:00     Welcome: Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director, EPIC

9:00 - 10:00:   Panel I "From Ben Franklin's Web Site to the
                Destruction of Privacy in America"

Moderator:      Deborah Hurley, Executive Director
                Harvard Information Infrastructure Project
                Kennedy School of Government

(over) Professor Anita Allen-Castellito, Univ. of Pennsylvania Law School

Professor David Flaherty, Former Information and Privacy
Commissioner, British Columbia

Professor Gary Marx, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Professor Jeffrey Rosen, author, "The Unwanted Gaze: The
Destruction of Privacy in America"

Robert Ellis Smith, author, Ben Franklin's Web Site: Privacy and
Curiosity from Plymouth Rock to the Internet



10:00 - 11:00   Panel II  "The Free Software Movement"

Moderator:      Professor James Boyle, American University Law School

Professor Julie Cohen, Georgetown University Law Center

Whitfield Diffie, Distinguished Engineer, Sun Microsystems

Austin Hill, President, Zero KnowledgeSystems

Barbara Simons, President, Association for Computing Machinery

Peter Wayner, author, Free For All: How Linux and the Software
Movement Undercut the High- Tech Titans

For more details and purchase information on these publications
visit  the EPIC Bookstore (epic.org/bookstore/)

Contact:  Sarah Andrews, EPIC Policy Analyst,  (202) 483 1140,
<andrews@epic.org>

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
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