Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The Obama administration last week published a draft software source code policy that requires all government agencies to publish their custom-build software as free software for public use, according to the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE).
The Ukrainian Parliament is currently drafting an amended Customs Code to introduce a number of changes to the country’s intellectual property legislation. Moreover, in mid-March, local lawmakers authorised Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko to ratify the protocol amending the TRIPS agreement which enables increased exports of pharmaceuticals produced under compulsory licences to countries which are not capable of manufacturing them locally.
A new UN report provides significant detail on the increasing flows of cultural trade worldwide. On intellectual property rights, the report appears to primarily examine copyright as a form of revenue generation.
This year will be the last in office for United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. A number of Eastern European candidates are being proposed by their governments to be the next secretary general. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as the UN Environment Programme are expected to have a new head by summer. Meanwhile, chairs are actively revolving in law offices.
Despite impressive growth, the pharmaceutical sector in China still relies on generic drug production since the majority of domestic companies cannot compete with country-based foreign corporations. Currently, following WTO pressure to oblige China to comply with IP regulations, more and more patented drugs are entering the market. Unfortunately, in spite of a newly introduced IP friendly bill, a puzzling situation persists, writes Pietro Dionisio.
Two key senators today released dozens of comments they received in response to their report on the medicine Sovaldi (and its follow-on Harvoni), whose extreme high prices sparked a debate over pharmaceutical pricing that has created momentum for policy changes.
The stand-off between European Patent Office President Benoît Battistelli and the Office's largest staff union continues this week with a 16 March SUEPO demonstration planned during a meeting of the Office's Administrative Council (AC), which supervises the EPO's activities.
Standards developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute for industries such as the mobile communications sector are underlain by an intellectual property rights policy that has proved successful for many years, ETSI officials said at an 11 March Oxfirst webinar.
An initiative of the United Nations secretary general yesterday gathered what could be described as an assembly of many of the world’s best thinkers and practitioners on public health and intellectual property rights. Industry, activists, academics, international organisations, and possibly some governments poured out their views for nearly seven hours – at times coming to tears and tension – shepherded by an astute moderator, as they responded to the call to take a longstanding debate on medicines access and high prices to a breakthrough.
Today, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) filed a patent opposition against Pfizer’s vaccine for pneumonia in India.
The Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) at its 55th meeting in Marrakesh today (10 March) passed a milestone resolution to ship a package of proposals by its stakeholder groups to the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to end the latter's role as an oversight body for the internet. If approved, ICANN will be the next manager of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which is a set of registries for domain names, IP addresses and protocol parameters essential for the functioning of the global internet.
The World Health Organization has provided a list of suggestions to the United Nations Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines, highlighting WHO activities in this area and making suggestions on areas the WHO has not yet been able to complete. It also describes several new proposals by WHO, including a global “fair pricing forum,” a pooled health product R&D fund, and a global antibiotic research and development facility.