Category Patents/Designs/Trade Secrets

Irrepressible Rise Of China In International Patent Applications, Developing Countries Lagging

If the United States remains the champion of international patent applications at the World Intellectual Property Organization, China is now on its heels, and knocked Japan off the second place in 2017, according to numbers provided by WIPO. Southeast Asia is now a strong source of international applications, while developing countries still stand as a poor relation of the intellectual property system, though some of them are progressing steadily.

Tentative New Wording For Draft WIPO Instrument Protecting Genetic Resources

Delegates at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week started discussing core articles of what could potentially become a treaty preventing the misappropriation and the granting of intellectual property rights on genetic resources. Facilitators named by the chair of the WIPO committee addressing this issue produced a new tentative draft version of the objectives of such treaty.

WIPO Committee On The Protection Of Genetic Resources Meets This Week

World Intellectual Property Organization delegates will meet in the coming week to try to advance work on the protection of genetic resources against misappropriation. Through its renewed mandate, the WIPO committee is expected to focus on accommodating diverse points of view and try to reach a common understanding on core issues, including what and whom should benefit from protection.

Global Health Governance Changing With Shift In Economic Centre Of Gravity, Speakers Say

Political and economic shifts have modified the post-war world order, and global health governance has to adapt to this new environment, speakers said at an academic event in Geneva this week. Among the changes: with the decline of United States funding for global health, new actors such as China and India could take leadership roles, they said.

UAEM Students Launch Campaign To Drop Publicly Funded Patent Claim On Cancer Drug In India

The Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) this week launched a campaign to ask the University of California to drop its pursuit of a patent on the prostrate cancer drug Xtandi in India in order to make it affordable for patients. Xtandi sells at "exorbitant" rates in the United States, they said, a seeming violation of the licensing guidelines of the publicly funded University of California system which guarantees an "appropriate" return on taxpayer investments.

Did EU Council Conclusions On IP Enforcement Overlook Patent Trolls?

A coalition of companies holding patents in Europe has welcomed conclusions released this week by the Council of the European Union on tougher enforcement of intellectual property rights. But the group raised concern that the conclusions failed to recognise the steady rise in the EU of patent-assertion entities, or patent trolls.

Study – Education About IP Is Low For Non-Lawyers, Even In Top IP Nations

Countries highly dependent on intellectual property rights do little to educate people not working in the IP field about the importance of such rights, an industry-backed study has found.

Key Drug Innovations Often Don’t See Market Rewards, Academic Says

There is little evidence that more innovative or therapeutically valuable pharmaceutical products are rewarded, or that patents are the best way to do so, Economics Professor Margaret Kyle of the Centre d’économie industrielle of Mines ParisTech says in an upcoming study for the Review of Industrial Organization.

UN Member States Briefed On Innovation And Access To Health Technologies

NEW YORK -- A major event on innovation and access to health technologies took place at the United Nations in New York last week, in which UN member states were briefed on ideas and efforts to promote these issues at the forefront of global health policy.

Sir John Sulston, Human Genome Project Leader, Remembered For Words On IP And Health R&D

Nobel Prize winner Sir John Sulston passed away on 6 March at the age of 75, and was widely remembered in the press and scientific circles, celebrating his research, his wisdom, and his leadership of the landmark Human Genome Project. Intellectual Property Watch recalls his visionary warning and advice a decade ago about the intellectual property system, investment, and science that is still valuable today.