Original news and analysis on international IP policy
By William New The World Health Organization Executive Board recently addressed several key issues pertaining to intellectual property rights and access to knowledge. This included extensive discussion of pandemic influenza policies, the management of IP and health, and an appeal…
By Kaitlin Mara and William New A panel of government and non-governmental experts on intellectual property and biodiversity issues last week stressed the high impact that leading economies’ bilateral free trade negotiations are having on multilateral policymaking in Geneva. Panellists…
By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch CANNES – Music industry 1.0 is dead, but 2.0 has not arrived quite yet. New models for making money from music and music rights are being looked for desperately at the world’s largest…
By Catherine Saez A more balanced international regime for intellectual property rights and trade is needed to rectify the current system, which too strongly favours developed countries, developing country panellists said at a recent event. But some say that a…
By Kaitlin Mara Intellectual property rights issues have been finding their way into the campaign platforms of candidates vying to become the next president of the United States. The following is a look at IP positions of the candidates so…
By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch Efforts by European Union authorities to take advantage of standardisation as a de facto regulatory tool have not been sufficiently systematic in recent years, according to a study published by the European Commission…
By Claudia Jurberg for Intellectual Property Watch RIO DE JANEIRO – Doubt about the constitutionality of an aspect of the Brazilian Industrial Property Law has been raised by civil society institutions to Attorney General Antônio Fernando Barros e Silva e…
By Steven Seidenberg for Intellectual Property Watch It was a victory for the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), but it may be short-lived. On 7 December, a US federal court threw out a lawsuit that challenged Margaret Peterlin’s appointment…
By Catherine Saez
Months after health products manufacturer Johnson & Johnson filed a civil complaint against the American Red Cross and its commercial licensees to stop using the symbol of a red cross, the public interest it generated seems to have all but subsided. However, questions about the possible consequences of this lawsuit at the international level remain unanswered.
After roughly 100 years of sharing the symbol, the two entities are now fighting over it. The lawsuit filed by US-based Johnson & Johnson (J&J) against the American Red Cross (ARC) and four of its licensing partners on 8 August focused mainly on preventing the ARC and its licensing partners from using the red cross design on commercial products such as first aid kits to prevent unfair competition. The American Red Cross has licensed sale of its kits in large-scale retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target and major drug stores.
By Catherine Saez How best to protect traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions and genetic resources against misappropriation and misuse was the main theme of a recent community consultation in the form of a roundtable organised by the World Intellectual Property…