Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Days before a major meeting of the governing body of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), over 100 non-governmental organisations worldwide are calling for the organisation to maintain its development role and not help implement international and regional trade rules.
Next week, the French Senate is due to consider a bill on biodiversity for the third time. That bill, which could be modifying several legislations, might allow for the sharing and selling by non-governmental organisations of seeds in the public domain to non-commercial buyers, which is so far not permitted under the current French legislation, according to sources.
Today the Medicines Patent Pool announced the signing of nine new sub-licensing agreements for the generic manufacturing of key HIV and hepatitis C treatments.
World Health Organization member states have until 15 July to submit views on a five-year-old mechanism allowing for swifter sharing of pandemic influenza viruses and benefit-sharing measures, according to the group tasked with providing a report on the review.
A new book provides ways for public research to avoid legal battles over genetic resources in the fields of agriculture, biomedicine, environmental management and microbiology by making best use of an international protocol on access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing.
A resolution on access to medicines proposed by a number of developing countries was adopted today by the United Nations Human Rights Council, as well as a resolution on enhancing capacity-building in public health. This marks yet another United Nations fora in which developing countries seek to raise the issue of access to medicines, particularly with regard to high prices.
World Intellectual Property Organization members attending this week’s patent law committee meeting agreed on a work programme, reflecting divergent views on patents and health, exceptions and limitations, and patent quality.
The World Intellectual Property Organization treaty to facilitate access to books in special formats for visually impaired people will enter into effect, as the 20th member state acceded to the treaty today.
This week in the World Intellectual Property Organization patent law committee, the African Group submitted an updated proposal for a work programme on patents and health that would help developing countries tailor patent law to their circumstances.
A top Ecuadoran official said today at the United Nations in Geneva that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s health is deteriorating after four years confined in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, while the United Kingdom and Sweden are ignoring the findings of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention which called for Assange’s release. The Ecuadoran Minister of Foreign Affairs also said Ecuador will carry on issuing compulsory licences for medicines as it sees fit, underlining the increasing role of intellectual property and the greater privatisation of knowledge.