Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The 2014 edition of an independent ranking of leading pharmaceutical companies' efforts to help developing countries released today found new initiatives undertaken in the past two years. But it said corruption and insufficient disclosure of existing patents continue to plague the industry.
The Net Mundial initiative of the World Economic Forum represents the first time that such a corporate-led venue – although sold as multistakeholder, open, and voluntary, among others – is positioned as being 'the' mechanism for global governance in a specific sector, the Just Net Coalition writes.
Public health activists and others have been watching closely in recent months as United States government and industry officials meet steadily and intensively with Indian counterparts to press change in that country's intellectual property policy toward greater protection and recognition of western IP rights. A particular area of concern has been in pharmaceuticals, as India is said to be the world's top supplier of affordable generic versions of drugs under patent that otherwise would be out of reach for millions of poor patients. Several activists have raised alarm over a meeting this week of US IP industry representatives with top judges in India.
In Kenya, residents living around Lake Bogoria in Baringo County have received Kenya shillings 2.3 million, about USD 26,000, as royalties paid by a Danish bio-enzyme company.
After months of repeated difficulties in WIPO committees plagued by stalled decisions or inability to agree on future work, the World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) appears to have turned the odds and managed to agree on two longstanding issues.
The World Health Organization Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP) Framework is at risk due to some companies not fulfilling their obligations, a new WHO report says.
Proposals for products to help fight Ebola are coming in to the World Health Organization, but few look promising so far, an official said today. Meanwhile, efforts are on to establish testing sites for potential products, and thinking is still in the early stages on intellectual property rights for new drugs in development.
Dr. Carolyn Deere Birkbeck writes: At this week’s Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP), WIPO Member States continue to debate next steps on the unprecedented 2011 External Review of WIPO’s assistance to developing countries. With a new Deputy Director General for the WIPO’s Development Sector due to start work this December, the prospect of new leadership also marks a time for Members to provide clear direction. They should act this week and in the coming months to set clear priorities for the Secretariat - and for themselves – that would give greater focus to the ongoing work of improving WIPO’s development cooperation activities, and to establish a mechanism for monitoring progress.
The African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), with the help of the United States and an international plant variety organisation, is working to grow regional support for a controversial draft law. The draft protocol would boost protection for new plant varieties, despite concerns of local civil society that it would not be in the best interest of ARIPO members’ food security due to its potential impact on small farmers. ARIPO held a regional workshop on the issue in recent weeks in part to build support for a treaty negotiation to lock in these protections.
A lighter mood seems to have set in at the World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP), after a year of what was qualified as a cycle of disagreements by some. Although delegates reiterated previous positions on some longstanding agenda items, some middle-ground alternatives seem to have gained attention.
BRUSSELS – European experts in research, industry and policymaking at a recent conference here discussed the importance of integrating standards, research and business into the cycle of innovation in Europe.
In this opinion, the European Copyright Society (ECS) puts on record its views on the issues raised by the Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Case C-201/13, Deckmyn, which departs from the doctrine of strict interpretation of exceptions and limitations in cases in which fundamental rights such as freedom of expression are involved.