Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The high technology remains unconvinced by efforts in the United States Senate to reform US patent laws, a Washington tech industry association said today, as debate on the bill began on the Senate floor.
Having successfully advanced discussions toward treaties on the protection of folklore and traditional knowledge, country experts this week are meeting at the World Intellectual Property Organization to discuss the protection of genetic resources. But this time, it might prove trickier.
A designated working group will meet for the first time this week to discuss the World Health Organization’s role in the safety, quality and efficacy of medical products, but some countries are concerned about what they consider to be the unwelcome intrusion of intellectual property rights issues into the debate.
After a week of technical discussions to elaborate a draft text designed to help the World Intellectual Property Organization member states reach a treaty text on the protection of traditional knowledge, experts provided a set of draft articles, comments and proposed amendments.
On the eve of a meeting of the WHO working group on substandard/spurious/falsely-labelled/falsified/counterfeit medical products, research-based pharmaceutical industry group IFPMA sets out thoughts on building global consensus to address fake medicines.
Experts gathered at the World Intellectual Property Organization to produce a negotiating document on traditional knowledge produced a cleaner text yesterday.
After two days of broad analysis of a draft document on traditional knowledge, country experts were to convene today in small drafting groups to trim down the language and arrive at a treaty negotiating text for the delegates meeting at the World Intellectual Property Organization in May.
A group of country experts are gathered at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week to elaborate a draft text on intellectual property and traditional knowledge. The positive momentum set by the results obtained by experts on traditional cultural expressions last July paved the way for this week’s agenda.
A European Parliament majority this week approved a free trade agreement with Korea with strong provisions on intellectual property rights protection, according to Robert Stury, rapporteur of the lead EP Committee on the dossier.
Patents and public health are sometimes seen as a mismatch, but three prominent international organisations today stepped up their collaboration on ways to facilitate access to medicines by making a better use of the patent system. Effective, reliable and transparent information on patents is necessary to help decision-makers take the best public health approaches for global health coverage, panellists said.
A Washington intellectual property lawyer and private sector representative has been named deputy director at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Her area of expertise is pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other life science issues.
An influential private sector trademark defender is proposing to the World Intellectual Property Organization to undertake creation of an international “notice and takedown” system for alleged online trademark infringers.
And he told Intellectual Property Watch that this will be followed in a few months by a separate proposal for a “notice-and-trackdown” article requiring internet service providers to divulge information about online counterfeiters so they can be gone after.