Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The European Commission and African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) yesterday signed a cooperation agreement on the protection of traditional agricultural products from specific geographical locations or with specific characteristics.
David Kappos, the director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), will leave at the end of January, a USPTO spokesperson confirmed today.
The World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Body yesterday heard arguments by parties in a dispute about Australia's new public health law requiring tobacco imports to be in plain packaging as a way to discourage tobacco use. Honduras presented a challenge to the Australian law, saying it is not in line with WTO rules on intellectual property rights, while Australia said it is a "sound, well-considered" action in the name of public health.
World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan today issued a statement attempting to clarify the UN agency's relationship with the industries - like producers of junk food and soda - in line to be regulated as the UN moves to battle globally rising noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Greg Perry, a longtime leader in the European generics industry, has been named the new executive director of the Medicines Patent Pool, a cutting-edge Geneva-based group working to increase access to affordable, high-quality medicines for HIV/AIDS patients in low and middle income countries.
The Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a health financing institution focused on the global South, is poised this week to select its next director – from the North. And while the selection process has been conducted in the utmost secrecy, confidential selection documents show that the list is down to four candidates, said to be from Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The industry practice of extending patent protection on pharmaceuticals by obtaining additional patents on other features of the drug ingredients can lead to decades of delay in generic competition, a new study argues.
The only independent external oversight body of the United Nations has launched a new website, making it easier to access its reports dating back to 1968, and other information.
An outside meeting of experts has prepared a report ahead of this month’s gathering of World Health Organization members hoping to agree on new models for financing research and development for diseases lacking adequate market mechanisms and public policies. These include neglected diseases that predominantly affect poor populations unable to pay high prices needed to defray R&D costs under the existing commercial model.
The government of India has released a set of draft guidelines to be followed in the patenting of traditional knowledge and biological material. Comments are due by 22 November.
US voters returned President Obama for four more years, and kept his party's dominance of the US Senate as well as the opposition party's dominance of the House of Representatives. While the Obama administration has generally allied itself with copyright interests, some see the possibility of a reversal in the US Congress of a trend toward stronger copyright protection.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) last night quickly congratulated US President Barack Obama on his re-election for four more years, praising his “understanding” of the importance of intellectual property to the US economy. Observers have seen the Obama administration as strongly supportive of the copyright industry, and said Obama received significant campaign financial support from Hollywood while possibly losing ground with the technology industry. And some even see the possibility of a reverse in the US Congress of a trend toward stronger copyright protection.