Original news and analysis on international IP policy
In a single voice, public health authorities spoke out about the need to take on the world’s heaviest disease burdens including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases. Now negotiations are narrowing in on the specifics of how to prevent and control these diseases, and achieving agreement on some commitments, including those related to medicine availability, could prove more challenging.
The protection of intellectual property for plant innovation was at the heart of a recent conference on patents and modern plant breeders rights in horticultural breeding.
At last week's high-level meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) governments agreed to double financial flows toward biodiversity by 2015, the CBD has announced. They also came up with strategy to move forward on access and benefit-sharing of biodiversity.
In a move that goes beyond territorial disputes and past atrocities, the Republic of Korea this week hosted a training session for Chinese civil servants on protection of intellectual property rights.
On 16 September, the United States made its patent system more like everyone else’s. The country began implementing a new patent office procedure for challenging the validity of recently issued patents. This was, however, only a modest step towards harmonisation because the US version of post-grant patent review has little in common with the corresponding processes available in other countries, according to experts.
Sustainable agriculture needs a new paradigm in the face of the growing global population, away from the "more production" orientation, says a new study published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).
The annual arbitration workshop of the World Intellectual Property Organization is taking place this year in Singapore, the first time the gathering has been held outside the United Nations agency headquarters in Geneva.
Washington, DC - Standards guide many aspects of our lives. They instruct how telephones talk to each other, how the life sciences community shares information, how electrical devices are charged, and how the internet runs, among other things.
It’s standard-setting organisations (SSOs) that facilitate discussions among stakeholders - including intellectual property owners and users - and produce common, typically voluntary technical standards to address needs and concerns of those using the technology. Companies need to make compatible or interoperable products that comply with these standards in order to compete in the global marketplace. And intellectual property is increasingly coming into play in the development of these standards.
The first meeting of the World Health Organization member state mechanism to prevent and control so-called substandard, spurious, falsely-labelled, falsified, and counterfeit medical products (SSFFC) will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 19-21 November.
An international network of civil society groups has issued a set of proposals for governments to encourage innovation and access to key technologies against climate change while taking intellectual property rights into account.
The Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is in the final phases of selecting its next executive director. In the run-up to the decision, the international financing institution is multiplying signs of its good health as it looks to turn a corner after months of major reforms.
Global health needs innovation but also to ensure equitable access for the world population, panellists at a roundtable said last week. At issue is the capacity of the pharmaceutical industry to innovate, and the potential barriers to access in a context of widespread diseases that blur the boundaries between developed and developing countries. Most panellists concluded that governments should hold primary responsibility for the health of their populations.