Original news and analysis on international IP policy
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen After much discussion and hard-won willingness to shift positions on what a chair referred to as a “difficult resolution,” member states concluded the 2007 World Health Assembly on 23 May with the adoption of an…
By Dugie Standeford for Intellectual Property Watch The United States government and the US creative industries last week signalled a new crackdown on intellectual property (IP) infringement at home and abroad. In a flurry of activity, the Bush administration proposed…
By Drew Clark for Intellectual Property Watch WASHINGTON, DC – Practically no one participating in a recent government forum here liked the proposed broadcaster protection treaty under negotiation at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva. Computer companies didn’t…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen The World Health Assembly on 21 May set up a drafting group to discuss a Brazilian proposal that could give direction to ongoing discussions on public health, innovation and intellectual property and potentially reinforce the…
By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch German public broadcasters at a recent hearing of Germany’s Supreme Court warned against state interference with the funding of their programmes. The appeal by Germany’s large public broadcasting organisations ARD, ZDF and radio…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen A preliminary agreement has been reached at the World Health Assembly on a draft proposal on malaria and the use of flexibilities in trade law to promote access to preventive technologies, sources said. After being…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan this week made a firm commitment to strengthen an intergovernmental working group on innovation and access to treatments that for the past year has struggled to find its…
By Martin Vaughan for Intellectual Property Watch WASHINGTON – The White House has agreed to loosen restrictions on clinical test data and patent safeguards for pharmaceuticals in bilateral trade agreements between the United States and Peru, Panama, and Colombia as…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen Intellectual property has become a major issue at this year’s World Health Assembly, with Brazil introducing a new draft resolution on public health, innovation and intellectual property, adding to various draft resolutions involving IP already…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen Early in the 2007 World Health Assembly, the focus has moved to avian flu virus sample sharing for the development of treatments and access by both developed and developing countries. A drafting group started work…
By William New Citing concerns over accountability and leadership at the World Intellectual Property Organization, the United States, United Kingdom, Japan and Switzerland are pushing for answers to allegations that WIPO Director General Kamil Idris purposely misrepresented his age on…
By Sarah Lai Stirland for Intellectual Property Watch
The United States Supreme Court in late April reined in another patent appeals court ruling it deemed overly-expansive. The high court ruled that software companies liable for infringing a patent in the United States cannot at the same time be held liable by American courts for the same activities outside of US borders.
"Foreign law alone, not United States law, currently governs the manufacture and sale of components of patented inventions in foreign countries," wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg on behalf of three of her colleagues, Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and David Souter.