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With the increasing complexity of societal and environmental problems in the Anthropocene, the use of both classification-based approaches, which provide in-depth understanding within disciplinary boundaries, and citation-based approaches, which provide interdisciplinary research, has been encouraged. However, there are limited comparisons of the knowledge networks produced between these two approaches, which compromises our capacity to manage technological development. This paper aims to investigate the similarities and differences of river technology networks produced using classification-based and citation-based approaches. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) database from 1863 to 2020 was used as the data source. River technology systems contained three interactive subsystems: water demand, water supply, and water management, and the structure was measured using network-based metrics. It was found that river technology systems constructed using the classification-based and the citation-based approaches developed similarly in terms of their temporal, spatial, and compositional features. The structural differences were attributed to the addition of an external system that draws upon interdisciplinary knowledge beyond water resources. Both approaches can be used for guiding technology management, with the classification-based approach being more effective for understanding the content of innovations and the citation-based approach being more effective in gathering information beyond the water resource discipline. Technologies from more diverse disciplines should be encouraged to address increasingly complex water challenges.

When international organizations expand and proliferate, why do they fail to spread more evenly in their policy sphere? To answer this question, this article builds on organizational ecology theory, which was recently introduced into the study of international organizations. However, rather than studying each population separately, as previous studies have done, this article investigates how distinct populations with overlapping niches shape each other’s evolution. It argues that when inter-population competition occurs, the first population to occupy its niche at a high density limits the long-term development of other populations. This is the case even if emerging populations may temporarily enjoy a higher growth rate. The argument is illustrated by a study of the relations between four populations of technical assistance providers in the field of intellectual property. By doing so, the article brings for the first time inter-population relations in the study of international organizations and provides an explanation for the persistent concentration of international organizations in specific areas of the governance space.

Digital sequence information (DSI) has no clear definition. Numerous countries define DSI as a nonphysical genetic resources, such as genetic sequence data. Restricting free sharing of DSI is at odds with fundamental science core principles in disciplines like microbiology and molecular genetics. It has the potential to adversely affect international research collaborations.

On October 9, 2018, President Trump signed into law a statute that implements the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled (Marrakesh Treaty). The implementing legislation broadens access to published works for persons with visual disabilities and paves the way for the United States to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty.

Nanotechnology research uses specific properties of materials at the nanoscale to develop improved materials, devices, systems and therapeutics. There is a risk of overlapping patent claims and lack of distinction between nano-based and traditional patents due to the interdisciplinary nature of nanotechnology. There is an increasing trend of granted patents. The World Intellectual Property Organization and World Health Organization, regulatory and policy bodies, are working to make a comprehensive property right regulation for nanotechnology products. The USA, the leader of nanotechnology products, has made guidelines to make patent search easier for nano-based products. The European Patent Office has also created a new classification for nano-based inventions. Here we review the status of intellectual property rights protection of nanomaterial, environmental implications and application of nanotechnology in agriculture.

In the 1990s, the fight between North and South over intellectual property (IP) reached new heights. The result was the World Trade Organization's (WTO's) deeply contested agreement on Trade‐Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Widely resented by developing countries, TRIPS nonetheless permits them some hard‐won flexibility. Puzzling, however, is why some developing countries have used that flexibility and others have not. Even more curious is that despite securing some extra concessions, many of the poorest countries have made least use of them. For scholars of international political economy and law, this book is the first detailed exploration of the links between global IP politics and the implementation of IP reforms. It exposes how power politics occur not just within global trade talks but afterwards when countries implement agreements. For developing countries, TRIPS did not end the IP offensive. At the urging of lobbyists from large multinational companies, powerful countries backtracked on the flexibilities in TRIPS and pursued even stronger global IP rules. To prevent precedents for weaker IP standards in poorer countries, they issued threats to market access, aid, investment, and political alliances. Further, they used new trade deals and, more subtly, ‘capacity‐building’ (assisted by the World Intellectual Property Organization, among others) to leverage faster compliance and higher standards than TRIPS requires. Meanwhile, ‘pro‐development’ advocates from civil society, other UN agencies, and developing countries worked to counter ‘compliance‐plus’ pressures and defend the use of TRIPS flexibilities, sometimes with success. Within developing countries, most governments had little experience of IP law. They often deferred TRIPS implementation to IP offices cut‐off from trade politics and national policymaking, making them more vulnerable to the TRIPS‐plus agenda. In francophone Africa, regional IP arrangements magnified this effect.

The global intellectual property (IP) regime is in the midst of a paradigm shift in favour of greater access to protected work. Current explanations of this paradigm shift emphasize the agency of transnational advocacy networks, but ignore the role of academics. Scholars interested in global IP politics have failed to engage in reflexive thinking. Building on the results from a survey of 1679 IP experts, this article argues that a community of academics successfully broke the policy monopoly of practitioners over IP expertise. They instilled some scepticism concerning the social and economic impacts of IP among their students as well as in the broader community of IP experts. They also provided expert knowledge that was widely amplified by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and some intergovernmental organizations, acting as echo chambers to reach national decision makers. By making these claims, this article illustrates how epistemic communities actively collaborate with other transnational networks, rather than competing with them, and how they can promote a paradigm change by generating, rather than reducing, uncertainty.

This article asks why indigenous peoples have been so unsuccessful in the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC). Carl Schmitt’s analysis of parliamentarism appears to provide a coherent account. Schmitt suggests that parliamentary forums require homogeneity of participants and without this sameness they are sites of empty talk that disguise the true locale of power and decision making. The analysis of the IGC deliberations shows that this is the experience of indigenous peoples within the IGC. There are gestures to inclusion and much talk, but power and decision making are located elsewhere. This article concludes that the IGC is symptomatic of a broader problem in international organisations positing participation as a means to engagement with indigenous peoples’ specificity and interests.

Po kratki uvodni predstavitvi orodij umetne inteligence avtor s tremi pomembnimi raziskovalnimi dosežki, ki jih teoretiki v celoti pripisujejo umetni inteligenci, preuči pravilnost takega poročanja v luči izvirnih raziskovalnih poročil. Nato predstavi prakso Evropskega patentnega urada, Japonskega patentnega urada, Državnega urada LR Kitajske za intelektualno lastnino ter Urada ZDA za patente in blagovne znamke, ki načeloma podeljujejo patente za izume, povezane z umetno inteligenco. Sledi kritičen premislek o akademski razpravi o zmožnosti uveljavljenih paradigem patentnega prava, da obvladajo izzive tehnologije umetne inteligence. Dejstva široko objavljenih patentnih prijav »DABUS« kažejo na slabosti trditve, da je umetna inteligenca avtonomno iznašla prijavljene izume, ter opozarjajo na pomanjkljivosti sistema in kažejo na ukrepe za ustrezno določitev na primer stanja tehnike, in oceno zahtevane stopnje inventivnosti za izume, povezane z umetno inteligenco. V skladu s prakso vodilnih svetovnih patentnih uradov, razumevanjem in presojo te prakse s strani njenih glavnih uporabnikov avtor meni, da bodo pod vplivom tehnologije umetne inteligence ustaljene patentnopravne paradigme nekoliko evolucijsko prilagojene, vendar ne bo prišlo do bistvenih sprememb. Avtor prispevek sklene s kritičnim komentarjem načrta EU za sprejem uredbe, ki bi posebej obravnavala vse kompleksne vidike patentiranja izumov, povezanih z umetno inteligenco.