The U.S. Copyright Office recently released a statement supporting droit de suite, or the right of artists and their heirs to receive royalties on the resale of their works. America currently uses a first-sale doctrine, where artists' royalties begin and end with the first time their work is sold.

A new report from the Brookings Institute by Walter D. Valdivia examines the standard operating procedure of technology transfers at research universities. Valdivia's research found most universities lose money on tech transfers using the common model of licensing intellectual property to the highest bidder. In 2012, the 5 percent of universities that make the most money from tech transfers made 50 percent of the total licensing income of all universities that do so. Current practices create a lopsided distribution of licensing income across research universities, where the same 37 universities consistently perform highly and the rest do not.

The 26th session of the WIPO Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) is currently taking place. The first two days were devoted to discussions about broadcasting organizations, and the next two are set aside for talks on intellectual property law exceptions for libraries and archives.

NASA recently opened a new online licensing tool to be used by businesses and individuals interested in the prospect of using the organization's research to develop new commercial products. The QuickLaunch licensing tool is a database of NASA technologies that are available for commercial nonexclusive licensing. In the interest of speeding the licensing process along, each available license has a set initial fee, annual royalty and standard terms.

3-D printers are a remarkable technological advance. The ability to create three-dimensional objects quickly and easily is a valuable one. However, there are challenges to intellectual property protections inherent in these devices. Any new technological advance changes the landscape of intellectual property enforcement somewhat, from the printing press to digital cameras in everyone's pockets. 3-D printers are no exception.

A report from the World Intellectual Property Organization, a United Nations agency, showed patent filings worldwide increased at a greater rate in 2012 than at any time in the last 18 years. Patent filings grew by 9.2 percent worldwide in 2012, with China at the head of this development as the country with the most filings and as the most popular destination for filing patents. China's State Intellectual Property Office saw an increase of 24 percent in patent filings in 2012.

YouTube recently implemented a system called Content ID that monitors videos where the video's creator runs ads. Content ID, an automated system, searches for material that infringes on the intellectual property rights of others. If it finds such content, it flags the video as an intellectual property violation. While for the most part this system exists to prevent abuses of copyright, for some corners of the Internet it is creating an uproar.

GoldieBlox, a toy company that aims to get young girls interested in engineering, recently used a parody of the Beastie Boys song "Girls" in a video advertisement that went viral online. After the musicians' lawyers contacted those of the toy company about the use of the parody song, GoldieBlox filed a pre-emptive action looking for protection from the courts for its decision, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

The intellectual property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement has been the subject of plentiful discussion for the past few weeks. This trade treaty includes intellectual property proposals that were released last month by WikiLeaks. In the normal course of events, the details of such an agreement would be discussed in secrecy until the agreement was signed, according to PC World. However, the whistle-blower website disclosed these details and sparked a lot of discussion in the international relations and intellectual property spheres.

The state of Maryland is partnering with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt to create a new partnership to attract tech companies to the state. More tech companies mean more talent for NASA to draw from as well as continued economic prosperity in Maryland.