Original news and analysis on international IP policy
World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan today presented her broad vision of a reformed WHO at the opening of the annual assembly of the organisation, and said the WHO was clear of suspicion of alleged pharmaceutical industry influence on the management of the H1N1 pandemic.
More than five years since the last UN-led World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and less than five years before the 2015 target date of the Millennium Development Goals, experts and representatives of needy countries are in Geneva to assess how it is going. One thing they are being told: the price of information and communications technology services has dropped in the past two years.
World Intellectual Property Organization members this week set the stage for text-based negotiations for an international instrument on the protection of traditional knowledge, folklore and genetic resources.
The state of global health and the work of the international organisation in charge of providing leadership in public health matters will be scrutinised at the annual World Health Assembly starting next week.
World Intellectual Property Organization delegates negotiating this week for a possible agreement on protection of traditional knowledge have advanced the text from which they are working, according to a copy obtained by Intellectual Property Watch. Meanwhile, the brand-name pharmaceutical industry sought to explain an alleged biopiracy case at a side event at WIPO today.
Although indigenous peoples’ rights are recognised in a number of international declarations, the implementation of those rights is difficult to achieve, according to panellists at an event opening this week’s World Intellectual Property Organization negotiations toward a treaty to protect traditional knowledge, folklore and genetic resources.
Access to essential medicines in least developed countries (LDCs) could be facilitated through local production, according to a report released today by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
The World Intellectual Property Organization committee in charge of overseeing the implementation of the organisation’s cornerstone Development Agenda, ended abruptly when the session was suspended after a strong disagreement over a development project.
Building on recent momentum that has produced negotiating texts towards an international instrument to protect folklore, traditional knowledge and genetic resources, delegates to the World Intellectual Property Organization next week will try to clean the texts that still bear signs of division.
NEW YORK – The United States Patent and Trademark Office is operating at a “higher level” these days, trying to look beyond patent numbers to patent quality and value, USPTO Director David Kappos told a group of licensing executives yesterday.