Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The Open AIR project has gone global. The research project’s findings were presented in a recent side event at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The findings, published in two books, assess how people from different African countries and sectors consider and use intellectual property and present three possible scenarios about how people will innovate in the next two decades.
Findings of a World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) project show that innovation occurs in the informal sector, and generates employment and development. Panellists at a recent side event to the CDIP called on policymakers to be mindful of this sector and implement policy frameworks, in particular in developing countries.
Reflecting its growing place on the international policy agenda, nutrition was a major focus of last week’s World Health Assembly.
“Governments have few sources of leverage over increasingly globalised food systems - but public procurement is one of them,” the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to adequate food states in a new report. The right to food should be included in public food purchasing according to five principles in order to make food systems fairer and more sustainable, he said.
The Geneva IP delegates list is updated! As a special feature for our subscribers, Intellectual Property Watch has assembled a new list of many of the leading government delegates working on intellectual property issues in Geneva.
The World Intellectual Property Organization recently published a paper entitled, “Documenting Traditional Medical Knowledge.” Withthe growing use of traditional and alternative medicines in developed countries, their importance in developing countries' health systems and the multi-billion dollar potential of benefits for companies, “documenting and protecting these medicines is becoming a greater priority,” the document states.
A recent book, “The Moral Dimensions of Intellectual Property Rights,” by Seven Ang of the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, explores the philosophical implications of moral terms included in IP rights statutes.
The European Union Council of Ministers on 14 April adopted a decision approving the ratification of a protocol meant to facilitate access to genetic resources and to provide the fair sharing of commercial benefits with provider countries. The target date for ratification is July 2014, according to the EU.
During a signing ceremony held today at the World Intellectual Property Organization, the European Union, France, Greece and India signed the treaty adopted last June to provide a wider access to copyrighted books in special format for visually impaired people.
Non-communicable diseases, access and affordability, global health governance and information and communications technology innovation are some of the important issues discussed and debated at the recent Geneva Health Forum (GHF).