Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Third World Network reports: Philanthropic foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United Nations Foundation have seconded their staffers to top management positions at the World Health Organization.
Colombia has a decision to make. A full year has passed from the November 24, 2014 request by iFarma, Misión Salud and CIMUN for a declaration of the public interest regarding the cancer drug imatinib (marketed by Novartis as Gleevec/Glivec), the first step on the path toward a compulsory license in Colombia. Thus far, Colombia’s Ministry of Health and Social Protection has failed to act one way or another, leaving patients in limbo and the government at the mercy of a Swiss pharmaceutical giant that reported revenue of over $57.9 Billion USD in 2013, write James Love and Andrew S. Goldman.
The final text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership confirms beyond doubt the apprehensions expressed by civil society, academia and the generic industry about new barriers to access to medicines. The TPP has done away with several flexibilities provided under the TRIPS Agreement and the Doha Declaration on Public Health. Though the text mentions “nothing in this [IPR] Chapter limits a Party’s rights and obligations under Article 31 of the TRIPS Agreement,” the TPP Investment Chapter overrides these flexibilities, says D G Shah.
Jonathan Band writes: During the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, many concerns were voiced about how TPP would mandate adoption of US-style statutory damages. Under the US Copyright Act, a court can award damages of up to $30,000 per work infringed, which can be ratcheted up to $150,000 per work infringed in cases of willful infringement. Scholars have found that statutory damages in the US have discouraged investment in innovative technologies while incentivizing the emergence of copyright trolls. So how bad is the statutory damages provision in the final TPP agreement?
[Software Freedom Law Center, Link (CC-BY-SA)] The first official public release of the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement (known universally as the TPP) on November 5, 2015 generated much heated speculation. The ideal of “open agreements, openly arrived at” remains regrettably unattainable in international affairs. “Fast track” trade negotiating authority in the US means that parties excluded from the negotiating process have a short time in which to mobilize for or against the treaty as a whole in light of their specific concerns. The premium on speed of response to a very lengthy and complex legal document—and the presence of intense public attention—guarantees that hasty judgment and occasional self-promotion will always outrun professional analysis; this is one of the inherent defects of secret legislation.
Annemarie Bridy writes: Section J of the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s IP chapter, on ISP safe harbors, looks a lot like Section 512 of the DMCA [US Digital Millennium Copyright Act], but the two frameworks differ in some important respects that could negatively impact the global environment for user speech online. This post offers a comparison of Section J and Section 512 with a focus on the rights of users and the status of user expression in the TPP’s intermediary safe harbor provisions.
There is a lot of hype around the Internet of Things (IoT) yet many, if not most, are confused by what IoT really is and what it means for their IP and their business. In fact, some people claim that the IoT is simply a matter of applying existing technology to new applications. Many companies new to the IoT market may have strong and expansive portfolio positions for assertion. This makes it difficult at best to discern whether or not IoT inventions are really new or just recycled technology. If you are a new player in the IoT market, you most likely will be filing patent applications for new innovations; however, since IoT is being built on established technology, you need to be aware that there are hundreds of technology companies that may already own the seminal foundation patents.
From Third World Network: London, 3 Nov (Sangeeta Shashikant) The United States and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) at the World Trade Organization have reached agreement ad referendum on a pharmaceutical patent exemption for a duration of 17 years, according to trade diplomats.
The Center for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) of the University of Strasbourg welcomes the Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the Digital Single Market, Andrus Ansip, for a conference-debate on the topic of the future copyright reform in the EU: “Is copyright in the EU fit for the 21st century?”.
Alongside the recent World Intellectual Property Organization General Assembly, the WIPO Global Challenges Division presented WIPO Re:Search, a public-private consortium to facilitate research on neglected tropical diseases, tuberculosis and malaria.