Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Alongside next week’s World Trade Organization intellectual property committee meeting, Brazil, India, and South Africa are convening a workshop on the neighbouring World Health Organization's approach to substandard and falsified medicines.
Some three dozen global civil society groups have called on the G20 countries to set a digital agenda that puts the interests of people and their rights front and centre, in particular on privacy.
This week's meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee opened today with what officials perceived as good momentum. Argentina tabled a proposal to help discussions on deferred transmissions in the context of a potential treaty protecting broadcasting organisations, which have been a sticking point in negotiations. Civil society, however, voiced concerns on the provisions of a potential treaty protecting broadcasters against signal piracy, underlining the 50-year envisioned protection and the need to carve out strong limitations and exceptions.
The World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee this morning started its weeklong meeting by rubber-stamping three nongovernmental organisations as observers, without discussion.
But a look at the website, www.ipcentreug.org, of one of the groups, as provided in the WIPO document as approved, states that the mission of the group is a "global conspiracy investigation institution" whose mission is to "free individuals and organizations from space lizards' control."
It took nine years of policy development, two different draft policies and various rounds of public consultation, to finally see Cabinet give the nod to the new Intellectual Property (IP) policy in South Africa.
European Union member states today reportedly agreed on their negotiating position on the proposed copyright directive, and early reactions are unenthusiastic.
A week after African ministers of health adopted a treaty for the establishment of an African Medicines Agency, an international conference held on the side of the World Health Assembly denounced the rampant and increasing issue of fake medicines in Africa, and the lack of adequate action and political will. The Benin president said Benin's efforts to fight traffickers is so far unsupported, and called developed countries to commit to the fight. Other speakers insisted on the importance of local production of medicines, and the need for biting legislation to defeat fake medicines.
In the wake of the annual intellectual property day this year focusing on women, the World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and IP this week agreed to discuss women and IP at its next session, as the first topic under a new agenda. The committee also agreed to a new project on the role of women in innovation. In other areas, more discussions are foreseen on whether regular international conferences on IP and development can be approved, and on recommendations by an independent expert group on the implementation of the WIPO Development Agenda.
The World Intellectual Property Organization annual self-evaluation of the implementation of its 2007 Development Agenda was rubber-stamped by most delegates again this year at the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property. But Brazil offered detailed suggestions on ways to improve the report and ensure that past work is not being included in the reporting on new accomplishments. It also warned against confusing WIPO's Development Agenda work with its broader activities for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The ongoing 21st session of the World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and IP this week considered a diverse set of three new project proposals. Canada, Mexico and the United States together, as well as Kenya, and Peru, proposed…