Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Patent reform, universal health care, and intellectual property rights protection of new health and environmental technologies are critical not only for the biotechnology industry but for improvements in public health, the president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) said Thursday.
By Georg Greve
Interconnectivity, commoditisation and increased reuse and recombination are key trends within the maturing information and communication technologies (ICT) industry that drive innovation and development. Harnessing the innovative and economic potential of the ICT sector depends on a variety of factors, including open innovation models, such as free software.
Gary Locke, the former governor of Washington State, is the latest pick of US President Obama for Commerce Secretary. The US Chamber of Commerce, a business lobby group based in Washington, DC, has reviewed his record on intellectual property. Posted…
That there will be a future for the international Internet Governance Forum seems likely, though the form its future incarnation will take is not. Delegates to an open consultation on internet governance this week began to sort out some base modalities on how to evaluate the progress of the United Nations-led discussion venue, as a deadline approaches to decide whether and how the group will continue.
The number and intensity of debates over the role of intellectual property rights in public health is set to increase in 2009.
New leadership and new mandates for key intergovernmental organisations implemented last year have created opportunity for change. And while old debates over the balance between IP rights and access to health products are not going away, this year will see more exploration at the intergovernmental level of different systems to stimulate innovation.
Capacity to make vaccines needed to respond to pandemic influenza has increased 300 percent, according to collaborative study [pdf] by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) released Tuesday. However, it has…
Key players in the biotechnology industry are leading an effort to obtain global approval processes for generic biological medicines, which experts say could provide cheaper access to costly but widely prescribed and promising treatments.
As the world becomes increasingly digitised, the question of who owns the uploaded pieces of people’s lives — their photographs, their missives to friends, their posted musings and blog entries — is clearly an issue capable of generating a lot…
The Sri Lanka Tea Board, will seek intellectual property protection for Ceylon tea (which takes its title from a former name of the island nation), according to a business news source from the country. Protection is sought under the World…
Andrew Witty, CEO of pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, said in a speech Friday at Harvard Medical School that GSK will contribute to a patent pool intended to increase innovation on medicines for neglected diseases. A Reuters story on the event is…