Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Hong Kong – A recent conference here looked at the evolving biotechnology landscape in the Asia-Pacific region as well as prospects for networking and raising capital for early stage life science innovation.
The World Intellectual Property Organization diplomatic conference expected to yield a treaty creating exceptions and limitations to copyright for the benefit of visually impaired people opened today in Marrakesh, Morocco.
Assurances of good faith and willingness to find solutions for remaining issues were given by delegates, while WIPO Director General Francis Gurry called for unity, King Mohammed VI talked about moral obligation in a royal message, and visually impaired people called for negotiators to create history. All nonetheless agreed on the importance of the copyright system.
Last Thursday, the United States Supreme Court overturned more than 30 years of precedents and ruled that isolated genes cannot be patented. They are products of nature and thus not patent-eligible subject matter, the court unanimously held in Assoc. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. This ruling puts the US at odds with most other nations, which allow genes to be patented. But because other major nations grant narrower gene patents, the net effect of Myriad will be to shift the US position on gene patents closer to that of other nations.
To what extent can global intellectual property rules address in an effective manner the needs of the most vulnerable members of society? This is the key question with which member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) are faced as they prepare to meet next week for a diplomatic conference, in Marrakesh, that should result in the adoption of a treaty to facilitate access to copyrighted works by visually impaired persons and persons with print disabilities.
Poland’s Minister of Culture and National Heritage Bogdan Zdrojewski has called on the country’s Ministry of Justice to create and integrate intellectual property courts into the country’s legal system. Under the plan, the new entities would become departments of regular courts, and they would be solely responsible for handling cases involving intellectual property, including disputes related to authors’ rights, trademarks and patents.
Ten years after applying for membership, Croatia is finally joining the European Union on 1 July 2013. Tanja Rajić, senior associate at PETOSEVIC, explains how six years of accession negotiations and the adoption of the acquis communautaire have affected intellectual property protection in Croatia and prepared it for becoming a member state.
The impact of intellectual property rights on the transfer of ‘green’ technology was brought up to the World Trade Organization committee on intellectual property this week with divided points of view. In addition, a discussion on cost-effective innovation was criticised by some developing countries as side-tracking the committee's objectives, and the European Union's planned revision of its tobacco products directive was disapproved by some producer countries.
World Trade Organization members this week agreed to give least-developed countries an extra eight years to implement international intellectual property protection rules. The decision received a broad support among countries, with some voicing reservations about the negotiation process.
Revelations about boundless spying by the National Security Agency and other US agencies on the electronic communications of US and non-US citizens are rippling international politics and will be a surprise topic at the upcoming Group of 8 summit in Dublin. But the more savvy technical community has been slow to react. There is some speculation about the technical solutions used and even less call for action. For many, quite obviously, the state surveillance does come as a surprise at least because of its scope.
During a recent meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP), a study on innovation in the informal economy was presented by the organisation's secretariat. The exercise was conducted in an effort to better understand how innovation occurs and how intellectual property is relevant in that context.
Daniela Bagozzi writes: Ten years of efforts in treatment for priority diseases has yielded impressive results both in terms of lives and dollars saved. To maintain progress in a volatile and financially tight environment countries and the international community will need to increase pressure on quality and healthy generic competition.
Over the past week or so, least-developed country (LDC) members of the World Trade Organization have held their own in a closed room with the world’s biggest economies as they worked out details of a request by the LDCs to extend the deadline by which they must enforce WTO intellectual property rules.