Original news and analysis on international IP policy
A new draft emerged today, the last day of the negotiations, on renewal of the mandate of a World Intellectual Property Organization committee on protection of genetic resources and traditional knowledge.
Among the hot issues at this year's annual World Intellectual Property Organization Assemblies is a proposal by WIPO to delay compliance with a United Nations-wide mandate to raise retirement age from 62 to 65 for those who started employment before 2014, supposed to go into effect on 1 January. WIPO's proposal to wait 3 years to raise the age for those who joined the organisation is intended to open up dozens of posts that can then be filled with workers holding other skills deemed more needed as the global IP system has changed.
António Campinos of Portugal has been elected to serve as the next president of the European Patent Office (EPO). He will succeed Benoît Battistelli, who has served since 2010.
The World Intellectual Property Organization is an international organisation based in Geneva, focused mainly on technical and legal issues of patents, trademarks and the like. But it is also a specialised agency of the United Nations, with over 1,000 employees. At its annual General Assemblies this week, an issue has arisen at WIPO that serves as a reminder of the complexities of UN membership.
The UN World Health Organization today announced it has established a new high-level global commission on noncommunicable diseases, to be chaired by former WHO director general candidate Sania Nishtar of Pakistan.
The United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization has upgraded its whistleblower policy, coming more into line with best practices for protecting employees from retaliation for reporting alleged misconduct in the organisation. Time will tell if the changes to the policy will prove effective.
NEW YORK -- Assuring the quality of medicines all the way to the consumer is a key component of the global antimicrobial resistance action plan now beginning to be implemented around the world, a panel of experts said during the recent United Nations General Assembly in New York.
NEW YORK -- At a recent event on the margin of the United Nations General Assembly, a senior World Health Organization official gave an update on global efforts against substandard and falsified medicines in the context of the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR). And a key issue is that often after arriving safely in the capitals, something happens just before quality-assured medicines reach the patient, contributing to AMR.
The World Intellectual Property Organization has a new head of Global Health, and the Global Challenges Division is hunting for its next director.
The World Health Organization today announced the new leadership team for the UN agency, with a range of geographic representation and a majority of women in the top posts.
The tiny Caribbean country of Antigua and Barbuda today at the World Trade Organization gave an account of misrepresentations by the United States in its failure to fulfil a WTO dispute settlement panel's finding that the US owes Antigua for US measures against online gambling that harmed the island's economy. The United States now owes Antigua some $200 million in damages, and has offered only about $2 million. Now Antigua will formally request negotiations with the US trade office. At stake is Antigua's authorisation by the WTO panel to recover its damages by failing to protect US intellectual property rights there, which it again reluctantly threatened to do if there is no resolution.
NEW HAVEN -- In an arresting presentation framed in a first-hand account of the creation of the early internet and focused on the hyper-sophisticated sensors we carry everywhere in the form of our smartphone, marking our every behaviour and element of our life for commercial and state use, Free Software legend and privacy advocate Prof. Eben Moglen gave a speech this week at Yale Law School on privacy, the "machine," and the jarring threat humanity is facing. There is at least one sign of hope, he said: the FreedomBox.