Global Fund Hits Reset On Executive Director Search
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is deliberating on how to start over on its search for a new executive director after questions arose near the end of the process.
Intellectual Property Watch
Original news and analysis on international IP policy
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Journalists Surveilled By German Intelligence Agency
The German Federal Intelligence Agency (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND) spied on foreign journalists, according to a report of German magazine “Der Spiegel”. A document obtained by the magazine showed that the BND had taps on at least 50 phone numbers, fax numbers and email addresses of journalists from the BBC, Reuters and the New York Times.
ICANN Is Moving Toward Copyright Enforcement, Academic Says
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is on an “ambivalent drift” into online content regulation through its contractual facilitation of a “trusted notifier” copyright enforcement program between the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the registry operators for two new generic top-level domains, University of Idaho College of Law Professor Annemarie Bridy says in a draft article for the Washington & Lee Law Review.
Many Questions On Potential Multilateral Investment Court System
The European Commission is pushing ahead with its Multilateral Investment Court (MIC) project, but called requests to eliminate specialised investor protection mechanisms unrealistic during a dedicated meeting with stakeholders in Brussels today.
South Centre Paper Sees IP In Free Trade Agreements Interfering With UN SDGs
A new paper from the intergovernmental South Centre argues that intellectual property provisions in recent free trade agreements would impair countries trying to fulfil the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Image Credits: South Centre
WHO Issues First List Of Potential Deadly Bacteria If No New Antibiotics Are Found
Microbial resistance to antibiotics has been rising and the world is now facing the serious possibility of falling back to the days when infectious diseases were hardly treatable. The World Health Organization today published a list of bacteria for which new antibiotics are most urgently needed, to help with the race against time, as the medical world is running out of treatment options.
IP Scholars Warn About Stringent Copyright Rules In Asian RCEP Agreement
As negotiations take place this week in Japan for a free trade agreement covering the Asia-Pacific region, a group of intellectual property scholars is calling for the public interest to be clearly considered in the copyright rules of the future agreement.
Will US Follow UK Lead In Case On Copyright And Interoperability?
In a case pitting copyright protection against competition, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit must decide whether World Programming Limited (WPL) violated SAS Institute's copyright by copying software interfaces that enable interoperability. WPL has already won the argument in the UK and in Europe's highest court. The case has drawn strong support on both sides from the tech sector and a civil liberties group.
WIPO Committee On Protection Of Folklore: Shall We Dance?
It is generally held that traditional cultural expressions reflect communities’ cultural and social background and include elements of their heritage. For indigenous and local communities, those expressions of their traditional culture are vital. Next week, World Intellectual Property Organization committee members are expected to advance on a draft treaty text to protect those expressions, and look for ways to agree on basic principles, such as what the treaty should protect, how, and who it should protect.
More Transparency In Medical Product Prices Discussed At Event
The lack of access to medical products has spread from being a developing country problem to a global one as prices are now too high even for developed country patients and health systems for some medicines. An event at the Graduate Institute Global Public Health Centre yesterday was an opportunity to explore these issues.
German-Backed Report Lays Out Strategy For R&D Into New Antibiotics
In the face of the lack of attractiveness of investing in research for new antibiotics for the pharmaceutical industry, and the general lack of funding for research and development for novel antibiotics, a new report commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Health calls for countries to take action. In particular, the report proposes a global union for research and development, a global research fund, and a global launch reward. And access and pricing are key components of the strategy, it says.
US Business, Government Work To Bring Down ‘Dangerous’ UN Panel Report On Access To Medicines – And Change The Debate In Geneva
Calling it flawed and narrow and seemingly threatened by its contents, the leading United States business group and US government IP specialists are working to limit the impact of a recent United Nations report that made recommendations for the decades-old problem of ensuring affordable medicines reach people when they are under patent in a way that does not threaten innovation. One step in countering the UN report? Change the discourse in Geneva and elsewhere.