Category News

IP Enforcement Extravaganza Assails Consequences Of Counterfeits

PARIS - Counterfeiting and piracy are on the pillory at the annual event organised by three intergovernmental agencies fighting intellectual property rights infringement. Much of the emphasis of this year’s event is being placed on the danger to the consumers and the economic consequences of infringement as well as on the necessity of enforcement measures. But some developing country delegates present at the event raised concern that the event might not be taking their concerns sufficiently into account.

Microsoft General Counsel On Pricing For The Poor, Cloud Computing

A top official of the Microsoft Corporation paid a visit to his former school in Geneva yesterday on his way from the World Economic Forum, and talked about corporate responsibility, the company’s principles, infringement issues and cloud computing. He also tried to explain the company’s complex differential pricing regime aimed at lowering prices for lower income populations – especially if they don’t happen to speak a popular world language.

Last Online Voices Before Change Bursts From Digital Darkness In Egypt?

For anyone in Egypt in recent months or years, it was impossible to ignore the extraordinary destitution of masses of people living in dusty, stark cement structures everywhere on the edges of Cairo or the choked roads clogged with a far-too-rapidly swollen population. Reports from the ground via digital technologies chronicled events that hit this week, but it might be the digital silence today that seals the change.

WHO Gears Up For Reform Driven By Financial Shortfall

The Executive Board session of the World Health Organization ended early on Monday after a week of discussions that settled some issues but left some others for the next governing meeting of the organisation in May, with much to do until then. The WHO is facing a significant gap in its budget and a programme of reforms is brewing.

ACTA Inconsistent With European Law, Legal Experts Say

The recently completed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is not fully consistent with European Union law and goes beyond international law in some of its aspects, concluded a group of intellectual property law experts from universities in Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Spain.

WHO R&D Financing Committee Approved With Controversial Industry Expert

World Health Organization members yesterday struck a compromise allowing a Swiss industry representative to sit on a committee selecting proposals for research and developing financing for neglected diseases, disregarding the fact that he is author of one of the proposals. Special safeguards were added to prevent undue influence, but questions remain for some about a conflict of interest.

WHO Members Show Dismay At Delay On Counterfeit Medicines Group

World Health Organization members today raised strong concerns that a working group they mandated last May to address problems with WHO policy on counterfeit and substandard medicines has yet to be formed - with four months remaining before it must report back to members.

One delegation called for a halt to WHO activities on anti-counterfeiting until the outcome of the working group is accepted by member states.

New Rules Eyed For Election Of WHO Director General

With the World Health Organization director general’s term of office ending next year, WHO members today set up a drafting group to try to reconcile divergent views on the process leading to the election. Some countries are in favour of a principle of geographical rotation - citing over 60 years of no representation from their regions, while some other countries claimed rotation could override more important selection criteria such as expertise and experience, and could endanger the organisation’s future.

WHO Future In Question; Debate Over Industry Representation

A seemingly overworked and impoverished World Health Organization opened its Executive Board session today with calls for reform amid deep concerns about its financial future. Meanwhile, dissension arose over an industry representative named by the WHO secretariat to a new research and development funding working group, sparking the WHO director general to cast doubt on the role of industry in such groups.