Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The World Health Assembly on 21 May approved a resolution on global strategy and targets for tuberculosis prevention, care and control after 2015, which includes a new multisectoral strategic approach and bold targets to bring an end to the global epidemic by 2035.
Multiple stakeholders are pushing for a World Health Organization-led global action plan to curb antimicrobial resistance.
A new document on efforts to find innovative financing for neglected diseases has been made available today at the World Health Assembly.
A proposal to increase the engagement of “non-state actors” - industry, nongovernmental organisations, foundations and academics - in the activities of the World Health Organization is under intense debate at the annual World Health Assembly this week.
"Emerging Markets and the World Patent Order" is a new book that looks at patent system implementation in emerging market and developing countries, and the response to this implementation by Europe and the United States. Florida State University Law Prof. Frederick Abbott, one of the organisers and editors of the book, recently discussed the book with Intellectual Property Watch
A side event to this week’s World Health Assembly highlighted progress being made in a public-private partnership on the elimination of sleeping sickness, a disease that occurs in some developing countries.
Melinda Gates of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation addressed the World Health Assembly today, highlighting a new initiative on newborns. And at a press conference earlier in the day, a senior colleague signalled support for WHO Director General Margaret Chan’s strong concern yesterday about possible negative effects of free trade agreements on access to affordable medicines.
At a side event to the opening of the 2014 World Health Assembly, strong statements were made by BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) country ministers and representatives to assume leadership and cooperate to tackle the issue of inaccessibility to affordable medicines in theirs and developing countries.
The World Intellectual Property Organization technical committee working on standards to facilitate work of intellectual property offices and their communication had to adjourn its fourth session last week for lack of agreement on the committee’s relationship to the 2007 Development Agenda of the organisation.
The World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and Intellectual Property opened this week with a loaded agenda and some politically-charged issues. One of them is an independent assessment of the mandated mainstreaming of a development dimension into the activities of the UN organisation.
Music, movie, and television companies suffered a major defeat yesterday, when the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The ruling will lead to a flood of new copyright infringement suits against these content companies, according to many experts. And content companies may not be the only losers.
The United Nations Development Programme has launched a new publication on the use of competition law to promote access to health technologies. The guidebook describes competition law as an underused tool to be harnessed by developing countries and is designed to help them proficiently using it.