Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Latin American and Caribbean countries have tabled a new proposal for next week’s meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization committee on copyright. The proposal calls for analysing copyright related to the digital environment.
The Medicines Patent Pool has signed a collaborative agreement with the University of Liverpool to develop HIV nanomedicines.
The World Intellectual Property Organization committee on patent law is meeting this week, including a half-day seminar on the relationship between patent systems and the availability of medicines in developing countries and least-developed countries.
A group of civil society organisations is calling for endorsements of a letter to the World Trade Organization prior to the upcoming Ministerial meeting in December aimed at preventing alleged efforts by rich countries to tighten international trade rules and introduce corporate “wish-list” issues from free trade agreements into the WTO.
The chair of the World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee has issued a new consolidated text on definitions, what should be protected, and the rights to be granted to broadcasters. The text comes in the lead-up to the next meeting of the committee.
The World Intellectual Property Organization committee on enforcement concluded yesterday with an agreement on the future work of the committee. The adoption of this programme was heavily discussed during the week, reflecting the different approaches on enforcement of intellectual property rights among countries.
Alongside this week's meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization committee on enforcement, an event featured a former South African Supreme Court judge presenting his views on IP enforcement. There is a need to go for the “big fish,” he said, and to bring balance in sanctions and enforcement procedures. He also described courts as finding that exceptions to copyright are a public right.
The enforcement of intellectual property rights is a challenge in particular because of the lack of awareness of the consequences of infringement, said several speakers at the World Intellectual Property Organization committee on enforcement this week.
The Medicines Patent Pool announced today that it signed a first licence for a hepatitis C drug with Bristol-Myers Squibb. The agreement allows manufacturing of daclatasvir, royalty-free in 112 low-and middle-income countries.
Today, the World Trade Organisation intellectual property committee agreed on a recommendation to extend until 2017 a moratorium shielding intellectual property from a mechanism through which one WTO member can go after another member even in the absence of WTO rules infringement.
A shorter than usual World Intellectual Property Organization meeting of its committee on trademarks, designs and geographical indications closed yesterday with the prospect of keeping all items on the agenda for the next session.
Negotiators at the World Trade Organization met yesterday to try to agree on the fate of a moratorium shielding intellectual property from non-violation complaints. A two-year extension of the moratorium might be the compromise solution found to breach differences, according to sources.