Category: Trade Agreements

Luca Schirru and Sean Flynn At the beginning of May, the report “Copyright and Artificial Intelligence. Part 3: Generative AI Training” was released, sparking a wide range of debates due to its content and the political issues...

— Sanya Samtani[1] In Part I of this blogpost, I briefly set out the procedural history of the copyright reform process that led to the Presidential Referral of the Bill to the Constitutional Court. I also briefly...

— Sanya Samtani[1] On 21 and 22 May 2025, the South African Constitutional Court heard the matter of Ex Parte President of the Republic of South Africa: In re Constitutionality of the Copyright Amendment Bill and the...

The superstructure of knowledge governance is western intellectual property. It was designed without regard to TK and its producers. The international order has never given any serious attention to alternative knowledge...

Luca Schirru About the Report In February 2025, the U.S. Copyright Office released the report “Identifying the Economic Implications of Artificial Intelligence for Copyright Policy: Context and Direction for Economic Research”,...

Sean Flynn One of the questions swirling around Geneva these days is whether one country can block all progress alone. In WIPO last week, the U.S. laid down a couple gauntlets that may reappear at the Program and Budget Meetings...

By Faranaaz Veriava and Anne Marie Strohwald  The Constitutional Court [in South Africa] will on 21 and 22 May 2025 hear submissions relating to the constitutionality of the Copyright Amendment Bill that has been in the making...

Sean Flynn and Andres Izquierdo A debate broke out at the 34th session of WIPO’s Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) about a proposal from the United Kingdom on “Development of Strategies and Tools to...

by Denise R Nicholson, Scholarly Horizons In its landmark ruling on 7 May 2025, the Constitutional Court has opened the doors to access to information and accessible formats for people with disabilities.  It has also paved...

Sean Flynn, Lokesh Vyas and Luca Schirru The first Special 301 Report under the Trump Administration was released last month: 2025 Special 301 Report (final).pdf. The report always gives insight into the administration’s...

by Sanya Samtani On 7 May 2025, the Constitutional Court of South Africa handed down judgment in Blind SA v President of the Republic of South Africa and Others [2025] ZACC 9 (‘Blind SA II’). The judgment read-in an immediately...

Jonathan Band On May 6, 2025, the United Kingdom (UK) and India announced that they had reached agreement on a bilateral free trade deal that includes a chapter on intellectual property.However, no...

By Andres Izquierdo As WIPO’s Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) prepares to meet for its 34th session this May, an important question is back on the table: Are we doing enough to support access to...

The Forty-Sixth Session of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) concluded with modest but meaningful progress on key agenda items, including on the Broadcasting...

On March 19th, 2025, an informal group of countries known as “Intellectual Property (IP) for Development” -Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, India and Pakistan- hosted an informal side event, on the margins of the regular TRIPS...

In a Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) post made earlier today by James Love, KEI announced that it will host an informal roundtable on the WIPO broadcast treaty text that will be discussed at the WIPO SCCR 46 meeting from...

Professor Sean Flynn delivered the following statement at the World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Trademarks on the proposal by the United States and others for a Joint Recommendation on Graphical User...

The 48th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications (SCT) is considering two submissions from various delegations on Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). A...

Allan Rocha de Souza;1 Luca Schirru;2 Leon Queiroz Ramos3  In Brazil, 2024 has been quite eventful regarding copyright, with the debate seemingly returning to center stage. The Senate’s approval of Bill 2338/23 (AI Bill)...