Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Mirza Alas of the intergovernmental South Centre has published an analysis of the World Health Organization Executive Board approval of a draft resolution on actions toward ending tuberculosis and how it relates to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The opening paragraphs and a link to the original are provided below.
Today WIPO Director General Francis Gurry and Thomas Cueni, Director General of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), signed an agreement establishing the Patent Information Initiative for Medicines, or “Pat-INFORMED,” during the General Assemblies of the Member States of WIPO taking place this week. IFPMA worked with Intellectual Property Watch to prepare a Q&A with Mr Gurry and Mr Cueni about this new initiative.
Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) Commissioner Sung Yunmo took office a couple of months ago and is attending the annual World Intellectual Property Organization General Assembly this week. In that context, he sat down with Intellectual Property Watch, and in a Q&A mutually prepared Q&A, he described some of the policies and plans for his term of office, collaboration with WIPO, international partnerships, a proposed WIPO office in Korea, and regional efforts toward global harmonisation.
MUMBAI (Reuters) - India has granted Pfizer Inc a patent for its powerful pneumonia vaccine Prevenar 13, in a blow to some health groups that said this would put the treatment out of reach of thousands in poorer nations.
Steven Tepp writes: Virtually every consumer in every country wants products and services as inexpensively as possible. Nowhere is that demand more acute than in health care, where quality of life, and life itself, is at stake. In Europe, most national governments use the monopsony power of a single-payer national health care system to negotiate (or dictate) what prices they will pay, an activity that has been considered “anti-competitive” in EU private markets. And some governments simply issue price controls.
The 18th round of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement negotiations is taking place this week in Manila, Philippines. Health activists warn that Japan and South Korea are pushing for measures that go beyond international trade rules on intellectual property, including extending patent terms and data exclusivity in countries such as India, a primary source of cheaper generic medicines.
With the start of a new era in providing high-quality global news and information, Intellectual Property Watch is proud to announce the addition of three distinguished and eminent experts in their fields as new members of the IP-Watch Board of Directors.
George Willingmyre writes: The process a Standards Developing Organization (SDO) employs to revise its patent policy is an aspect of the SDO’s competitive posture in the global marketplace. A dearth of research exists on the processes SDOs employ to revise their patent policies. Generally, the processes an SDO uses to revise its patent policy are part of the governance processes of the SDO. As a baseline, the governance processes of an SDO must be consistent with the applicable legal system defining what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. What an SDO says about its governance processes is a further consideration. Thus the procedures themselves, the procedures’ relationship to the applicable legal system and what the SDO says about the procedures all play a role in understanding how an SDO revises its patent policy.
The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case over whether companies that make copycat versions of biologic drugs must wait six months after winning federal approval before bringing them to the market.
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