Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Global health experts, including senior officials at the World Health Organization, are calling for a global accountability mechanism for access to essential medicines, noting that a the lack of data on medicines affordability and national pharmaceutical expenditures has hindered this process, according a recent article published in UK medical journal The Lancet.
The ways to protect traditional knowledge and folklore against misuse and misappropriation are under discussion this week at the World Intellectual Property Organization. Member states are trying to find consensus on draft articles of a potential treaty, with a focus on core subjects, such as the scope of protection, and definition. Meanwhile, the fund which allows indigenous peoples to participate in the discussion is depleted, as calls for contributions have remained unanswered and some countries have refused in the past to allow WIPO's ample revenues to pay for them.
The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) has granted its first accelerated patent under its new FinTech Fast Track initiative last week to Voyager Innovations, a technology company based in Southeast Asia, according to an IPOS press release. “While patent…
An agriculture committee of the European Council today adopted an agreement on labelling of spirit drinks, giving them higher protection by adding seven years to the World Trade Organization minimum intellectual property standard.
Echoing the United States' Special 301 Report on alleged inadequacy of trading partners’ protection of US intellectual property rights, the European Commission has released its first ever Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List, which exposes rogue cyberlockers, stream-ripping sites as well as peer-to-peer and BitTorrent indexing sites among the threats to the EU's legitimate intellectual property-driven businesses.
New ideas are getting harder to find, and with less ideas there is a decline in organisational productivity and economic growth. This isn’t new, nor is the fact that to counterbalance the decline in idea generation, research and development have received and continue to require heavy investment. But with daily news of innovation centres opening up across the globe, the question remains whether initiatives like open innovation, crowdsourcing, or simply putting more scientific brains together will do this investment justice.
Last month, leading representatives of the IP, R&D and technology arenas met in Switzerland to discuss a technology-based alternative to human only idea generation. Hosted by data-driven invention company Iprova, the 2nd Data-Driven Invention Forum saw attendees from companies, such as Panasonic, Philips and DuPont as well as many other global organisations explore the future of innovation and the role data-driven invention plays in it. Here are some of the conclusions of the conference.
Satisfaction was shared at the World Intellectual Property Organization yesterday as its patent law committee closed early with an agreement on its future work. According to delegates taking the floor, the subject of future work answers interests of different groups. Approval of proposals on patents and health were particularly noteworthy, according to sources.
Voluntary licences are cited by some as the best way to facilitate access to medicines. Terms of the licences are important, many factors have to be taken into consideration, and the earlier the better, as explained by licencing experts at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week.
South Africa’s National Assembly this week approved redrafted versions of the Performers' Protection Amendment Bill and the Copyright Amendment Bill that includes stronger protections for copyright holders but also a fair use provision preserving some exceptions. But there is still an additional hurdle to go before it reaches the President for signature, likely in the New Year.
Core copyright industries have contributed more than $1.3 trillion to US gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017, and accounted for 6.85% of the US economy. They employed nearly 5.7 million workers in 2017, accounting for 3.85% of the entire US workforce, or 4.54% of total private employment in the United States, according to the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA)'s “Copyright Industries in the U.S. Economy: The 2018 Report.”