Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The ETC Group has issued a warning that "agribusiness giants Monsanto, DuPont and Dow are plotting the boldest coup of a global food crop in history," as they have applied to the Mexican government for the planting of transgenic maize on 2,500,000 hectares, approximately the size of El Salvador.
The Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria appointed Ambassador Mark Dybul, a former US Global AIDS Coordinator, as the new head of the organisation. Additionally, the Board decided to move forward on implementing a new funding model, replacing the rounds-based system.
As governments prepare to debate the European Union's overall budget for 2014-2020, European Parliament members and top scientists today warned that any cuts to research and innovation funding will risk the loss of a generation of scientists just when Europe needs them most.
The development dimension of the World Intellectual Property Organization is under scrutiny by member states this week, and after a smooth start and a general commitment to work cooperatively and constructively, discussions have demonstrated strongly held positions, leaving countries to try and find common ground.
The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) and Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) announced the identification of three potential drug classes for the treatment of neglected tropical diseases through the availability of hundreds of compounds in the public domain.
Greg Perry, a longtime leader in the European generics industry, has been named the new executive director of the Medicines Patent Pool, a cutting-edge Geneva-based group working to increase access to affordable, high-quality medicines for HIV/AIDS patients in low and middle income countries.
In the recent decision on the case “Novartis AG versus Laboratorios LKM SA re cease of use of patent” the Third Chamber of the Federal Civil and Commercial Appellate Court of Argentina set an important precedent in relation to the interpretation of the ius prohibendi of patent holders. In other words, the demarcation of what they can and cannot prohibit.
A proposal of the European Patent Office President Benoît Battistelli to pay a collective reward to EPO staff in 2012 in view of the positive operating result of 2011 has stirred concerns about the kind of incentive this might give to EPO examiners.
The Philippine Senate, the upper house of the country's bicameral congress, has approved a bill that seeks to put teeth into its copyright law as the island nation fights a bad reputation as one of the Asian states with high piracy rates. But it also seeks to protect fair use of copyrighted material.
The Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a health financing institution focused on the global South, is poised this week to select its next director – from the North. And while the selection process has been conducted in the utmost secrecy, confidential selection documents show that the list is down to four candidates, said to be from Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Cebu City, Philippines – The 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met over the weekend to advance the groundwork for what is perceived as a challenging but progressing task of harmonising their e-commerce laws, ahead of the region's nearing deadline of creating an integrated economy by 2015.
The industry practice of extending patent protection on pharmaceuticals by obtaining additional patents on other features of the drug ingredients can lead to decades of delay in generic competition, a new study argues.