Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Biodiversity and climate change issues are coming together under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), according to a new working paper from the University of Edinburgh.
World Health Organization members trying this week to agree on elements of a framework for helping the world address the next influenza pandemic headed into the final night of the meeting in intensive negotiations. At press time, negotiations were focused on specifics of standard agreements for the transfer of genetic materials related to flu virus strains.
In its slick new office building in Geneva, the World Intellectual Property Organization this week celebrated the 2 millionth patent filing under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, which it manages. In the foyer with white clad windows, a crowd was assembled to hear the praise of the international patent filing system.
The European Patent Office (EPO) announced today that patent applications reached an all-time record in 2010, with an increase of 11 percent over 2009. According to a press release, 235,000 patent filings were received by the EPO in 2010.
As a backdrop to World Health Organization members meeting this week in search of a global strategy for future influenza pandemics, the pharmaceutical industry and other actors have been developing a keen interest in patents on influenza genetic resources. A sharp and sustained increase in patent activity on those materials was pointed out by a civil society group in a new report, which it says challenges a recent report by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
An influenza pandemic is like the sword of Damocles over the world, and the recent H1N1 pandemic showed that the global response was inadequate, said the co-chairs of a World Health Organization group working on influenza pandemic preparedness meeting this week.
A European Commission-backed project to identify copyright holders and define orphan works - whose copyright owners cannot be found - recently presented its results and is heading to a second phase with more partners. The project advances the European effort at digitalising content through the Europeana project, a competing project to the Google Books project.
A hundred years ago, Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes and his student Gilles Holst discovered a property that was to launch decades of fervent research to understand the phenomenon: Superconductivity. Today, researchers are still trying to find ways to use this remarkable property, but are celebrating the centenary of its discovery.
The secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity announced on 7 April that two more countries have ratified the Nagoya Protocol.
The search for innovative solutions to engage research and development of health products for diseases that particularly affect developing countries is the core mission of a World Health Organization working group that met this week in a special mostly open session. The group of experts will assess proposals and deliver its recommendations next year.
A new study has recommended changes at the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) in Geneva, which is seen as having an enormous impact on global agricultural research. Separately, World Trade Organization members recently discussed the trade impact of private standards for food.
The Medicines Patent Pool, an initiative aiming at increasing access to HIV drugs through voluntary licences of patented drugs, has launched a new database of patent information on HIV medicines.