Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The Obama administration supports changes to the United States patent reform bill, said US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke in a letter sent late yesterday to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The amendments in question would allow the US…
The World Health Organization needs to streamline its functions and make more space for civil society, and international health systems must be strengthened in order to achieving public health goals, said panellists at this week’s Geneva Health Forum.
PARIS- The cosmetics industry is about beauty, but it is also increasingly about biodiversity as consumers show a growing awareness of environmental issues and the loss of biodiversity. As a wishful wink to the 10th meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya in October 2010, the Union for Ethical Biotrade (UEBT) held a conference at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris on 15 April.
Patent reform in America will spur high-paying job creation and economic growth, claims a new paper by senior economic officials at the US Department of Commerce and the US Patent and Trademark Office. Issued as the US Congress weighs patent…
A prepared-for-the-public version of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement under negotiation by leading economies has now been released online. The release comes after increased public and civil society outcry over a non-transparent negotiating process and fears that the treaty would lead…
Biotechnology, international trade, and pandemic influenza were among the topics discussed at the outset of this year’s Geneva Health Forum.
Public health authorities and observers in Geneva this week are discussing problems and possible solutions to medicines pricing and availability in developing countries. But concerns were raised yesterday about a World Health Organization expert group on medicines access and innovation.
Computer giant IBM is facing an antitrust claim before the European Commission brought by an open source software company alleging that IBM is preventing customers from using that software. Meanwhile, the open source community is worried that the use of intellectual property rights by IBM - a leading open source software maker – to block a competitor will endanger free and open source software and might uncap other IP rights claims from other players. IBM, for its part, is reaffirming its support to open source community and has asked the competing company to explain how its software does not infringe on IBM IP rights.
By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch
ACTA will be public. During the eighth round of negotiations for an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in Wellington, New Zealand that ended Friday, the negotiating countries decided to give in to persistent calls for greater transparency.
Several members of the European Parliament today sent letters to the directors general of the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization requesting technical assistance in the negotiation of an agreement that some are calling an attempt to circumvent global norms on intellectual property enforcement and related public interest flexibility.
A review of the World Health Organization’s response to the 2009 pandemic influenza outbreak kicked off this week, with firm statements from those involved in the response that they were not unduly influenced by outside stakeholders. Still, serious questions remain about the coordination effort, as a nearly a year after the pandemic was declared developed countries find themselves having to dispose of excess vaccines while poorer countries are reporting they have yet to obtain as many as they need.
Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice president and commissioner for the Digital Agenda spoke today about the future of the internet. In Valencia, Spain for a conference, she emphasised the importance of public-private partnerships, characterised innovation as “the only way to…