Year 2019

Malaysia Still Under Pressure To Make Hepatitis C Medicine More Expensive

The government of Malaysia continues to face pressure from the United States pharmaceutical industry and potentially the US government to undo an action taken to make a key hepatitis C medicine more affordable in the country. Now Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) has weighed in to defend the government's right to use a patent flexibility in global trade law that allows them to take such actions on behalf of their citizens.

WIPO Event: AI On All Fronts – Health, Cities, Agriculture – But Investment Needed; Europe Lagging

Artificial intelligence is with us to stay, and you can expect solutions to great challenges, but governments should be prepared to invest in education and research to keep up with the two global leaders of the field: the United States and China. This is in essence what several speakers said recently at an event held at the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Women On The Rise In Patent Filings, But Still Underutilised Potential, USPTO Says

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released a report on 11 February showing an increase in US patents that include at least one woman inventor from 7 percent in the 1980s to 21 percent by 2016. This is still a “small minority” of patented inventors, the report finds, and suggests that it indicates an “underutilisation” of women’s innovative potential.

TRIPS Council To Look At IP And The Public Interest, Business Interest

The World Trade Organization is the prime gathering point for the world's governments to discuss and negotiate on policies of the day. A decades-long swinging pendulum within the WTO's committee on trade and intellectual property is IP's contribution to innovation and economy and its contribution to the public interest. At its meeting this week, the committee will feature discussions on both.

US Industry IP Index Released: US Advances, India Shows Leadership, EU, Singapore Near Top

The leading United States industry association yesterday released its annual International Intellectual Property Index, ranking countries on their progress in protecting US intellectual property rights. The ranks show the US advancing in the area of patent protection, while retaining the top overall score; India strengthening IP and charting a course for other developing countries; and EU countries dominating the higher scoring bracket with Singapore first on patent protection.

Pre-Grant Opposition Filed Against Janssen’s Bedaquiline Fumarate Application In India

Tuberculosis and its variant - Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (DR-TB) - are global public health emergencies. Current treatment regimens are expensive, tedious and prolonged: the overall treatment duration is 20 months or more, requiring daily administration of drugs that are more toxic and less effective than those used to treat drug-susceptible TB. Most of the drugs for treating TB are old and are known to have severe side-effects, writes Sandeep K. Rathod.

On Eve Of Lego Movie 2 Release, WIPO Acts To Block Pirated Version

As the blockbuster animated movie Lego Movie 2 gets set to hit screens in the United States this weekend, the World Intellectual Property Organization had a release of its own: a domain dispute ruling against a pirate website purporting to offer a free version of the film for download ahead of the release.

IP Still At Heart Of Access To Medicines Discussions At WHO

Intellectual property is often pointed at as hindering access to medicines by resulting in their long-lasting unaffordability, a view which is strongly opposed by IP proponents. The discussions on access to medicines last week during the World Health Organization Executive Board meeting yielded a record number of interventions by member states and nongovernmental organisations, reflecting the importance of the issue.