Year 2016

WHO Group Suggests New Name For Falsified Medicines, Dropping ‘Counterfeit’

A widely representative World Health Organization technical working group has recommended new terminology for substandard or falsified medicines, after years of sharp disagreement among WHO members that led to the tongue-twister: “substandard/spurious/falsely-labelled/falsified/counterfeit” medical products. The working group recommends a simpler formula: kick out intellectual property rights by dropping the term “counterfeit” and just call the products “substandard and falsified.”

New US Copyright Rule Sets Trap For Online Firms

The US Copyright Office is supposed to balance the interests of copyright owners with the interests of everyone else. However, the Office’s latest regulation, which takes effect 1 December, may be anything but fair and balanced. It could, according to critics, strip Facebook, YouTube, and other online companies of a vital statutory safe harbor, thus making these companies liable when their users post infringing material online. Online companies could face billions in infringement damages, driving them out of business.

WIPO: China Leads IP Applications Worldwide Again; Asia Dominates IP Activities

The World Intellectual Property Indicators 2016 report sounds like a refrain, but with some superlatives when it comes to China, which became the first intellectual property office ever to register over a million patent applications in a single year, in 2015. Against a background of bleak global growth, IP activities are flourishing. As in recent years, Asia dominates the IP global activities, while lower middle-income countries seem to have been unable to reduce the technological gap, and remain almost left out of the IP activity.

ARIPO Members: Collective Management Organisations Need Better Digital Documentation, Licensing

Collective management organisations need to embrace online trading platforms, so as to increase earnings for economies and creators. That was the call made during a recent regional workshop on digital licensing and documentation in Harare, Zimbabwe for music collective management organisations (CMOs) by the member states of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO).

UN Secretary-General Urges Action On High-Level Panel Report On Medicines Access

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today issued a message praising the "milestone" report of a High-Level Panel on access to medicines he set up a year ago to address the continuing problem of medicines prices being too high for many in the world to afford, and the lack of access to quality medicines for many. In his message, he called on governments to review the report and its recommendations, and to chart a way forward to address the problem of lack of access to medicines and health technologies.

WHO Director Candidates Nabarro, Szócska Speak On Medicines Prices And IP

Candidates from around the world vying to be the next director general of the World Health Organization in recent weeks have presented their views to member states on a range of public health issues. Two of the six candidates answered a question put to them by Intellectual Property Watch relating to medicines prices, innovation and intellectual property. Here are their answers.