WIPO - Annual celebration of #worldipday 26th April

Every April 26, WIPO celebrates the World Intellectual Property Day to enhance public awareness on the role that intellectual property rights (patents, trademarks, industrial designs, copyright) play in encouraging innovation and creativity.

The 2017 theme focused on the importance of innovation in making lives of human beings healthier, safer, and more comfortable.

As WIPO website states, "Innovation means doing something new that improves a product, process or service". Innovations can be protected through intellectual property (IP) rights.

Inventions are the bedrock of innovation. An invention is a new solution to a technical problem and can be protected through patents. 

Patents protect the interests of inventors whose technologies are truly groundbreaking and commercially successful, by ensuring that an inventor can control the commercial use of their invention. 

An individual or company that holds a patent has the right to prevent others from making, selling, retailing, or importing that technology. This creates opportunities for inventors to sell, trade or license their patented technologies with others who may want to use them. 

The criteria that need to be satisfied to obtain a patent are set out in national IP laws and may differ from one country to another. WIPO Lex is the unique archive gathering together legislative texts of national laws and international treaties on intellectual property.

But generally, to obtain a patent an inventor needs to demonstrate that their technology is new (novel), useful and not obvious to someone working in the related field. Further information on the role of innovation and on the way WIPO protects novel technologies through he registration of patents can be found on the WIPO website here.

More of 300 events have been held worldwide to celebrate the #WorldIPDay

United States - Report on Forests and Rangeland drought to improve climate change planning and adaptation strategies

"Since 2000, fire seasons have grown longer and the frequency, size and severity of wildland fires have increased"

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

 A new report released by the US Forest service gathers the results of scientific researches conducted on the effects of drought on forests and rangelands to help authorities and local communities in developing mitigation strategies.

In particular, the report outlines that:

• Drought projections suggest that some regions of the U.S. will become drier and that most will have more extreme variations in precipitation.
• Even if current drought patterns remained unchanged, warmer temperatures will amplify drought effects.
• Drought and warmer temperatures may increase risks of large-scale insect outbreaks and larger wildfires, especially in the western U.S.
• Drought and warmer temperature may accelerate tree and shrub death, changing habitats and ecosystems in favor of drought-tolerant species.
• Forest-based products and values – such as timber, water, habitat and recreation opportunities – may be negatively impacted.
• Forest and rangeland managers can mitigate some of these impacts and build resiliency in forests through appropriate management actions.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/Drought/

For more information visit the US Drought Portal

Paris 2015 UN Climate Change Conference

Paris will held the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP21 or CMP11 from November 30 to December 11. The gathering will mark the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The conference will be conveyed with the aim at achieving a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, from all the nations of the world. 

Despite controversial interpretations on future trends for current global climate with scientists and researchers supporting theories on favour or against global warming, the international communityworking on climate changes will gather in Paris at the end of November to discuss a number of issues.

The topics discussed during the meeting