Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The implementation of the UN World Intellectual Property Organization Development Agenda ranked high in the opening statements of developing country delegates attending this week’s Committee on Development and Intellectual Property. The participation of WIPO in the broader UN Sustainable Development Goals was also raised.
The World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) meets this week with a full agenda, including guides on trademark licensing, open innovation networks, and IP commercialisation. Delegates are expected to approve new development project proposals and progress reports on existing projects. Also on the agenda is the spicy issue of coordination of the WIPO Development Agenda.
After two weeks of high level negotiations between the United States and the Group of Least-Developed Countries, the World Trade Organization committee on intellectual property rights today agreed to extend a waiver allowing LDCs to avoid applying and enforcing IP rights on pharmaceutical products until 2033.
October saw a flurry of changes in law offices in the United States. In Geneva, the coordination for Group B developed countries at the World Intellectual Property Organization changed hands, and the Medicines Patent Pool added four members to its Governance Board.
Patent offices should align their work in support of national health and medicines policies when carrying out the examination of patents, a new South Centre paper argues.
According to a prominent researcher in the field of neglected tropical diseases, the World Intellectual Property Organization has a prominent role to play in addressing the lack of research and development for neglected diseases.
A joint symposium of the World Health Organization, World Trade Organization and World Intellectual Property Organization this week included several panels on how trade, public health and intellectual property could positively interact to increase access to medicines.
Negotiations have been ongoing at the World Trade Organization over the extension of a waiver allowing least-developed countries not to grant or enforce intellectual property rights on pharmaceutical products.
Trade, health, and intellectual property came together today as the heads of three specialised international organisations held an annual symposium to stimulate discussions on how the three can best help public health, and notably access to medicines in developing countries.
A revealing independent review to be published this week on WIPO Re:Search, the World Intellectual Property Organization initiative for development of medical products for neglected tropical diseases, malaria and tuberculosis, gives a set of recommendations to ensure the sustainability and success of the initiative.
Royalty collection is on the rise, according to an international confederation of collecting societies, with Europe being the most fruitful market and North America showing the highest growth. Digital income now equals physical revenues from royalties, the report says, and performing rights account for the bulk of collections.
The treaty on plant genetic resources held its governing body meeting earlier this month with new initiatives to bring financial sustainability to the treaty, in particular to study the possibility of a subscription system to access the treaty’s plant genetic materials. Also, the Governing Body approved the first work programme of a global information system, which includes an initiative to enhance the use of gene bank materials, to the dismay of farmers’ organisations.