Original news and analysis on international IP policy
NAIROBI - Drug companies routinely violate World Health Organization ethical guidelines when advertising and promoting their products in East Africa, according to a new study released Thursday.
An expert body under the World Health Organization tasked with finding innovative solutions for financing research for needed medicines concluded its second official meeting Wednesday, working on a process to analyse possible mechanisms. The WHO afterward appeared to address concerns – which included a civil society letter – by insisting there would be more transparency in the negotiating process, but did not provide assurance that potential conflicts of interest would be properly addressed.
COPENHAGEN - A top priority for Sweden as it takes over the EU presidency on 1 July is to boost negotiations on a Community patent system and a European Patent Court, the government says. Its work programme also emphasises the need for "effective protection of intellectual property rights" and lists a conference on enforcement. Officials, however, deny that enforcement is among the presidency's main IP focus. And the Pirate Party is concerned.
An intergovernmental committee considering ways to protect kinds of knowledge that predate - and may not fit into - the current intellectual property system picked up this week after a chaotic round of negotiations failed to make any progress at the last meeting. Meanwhile, some indigenous groups, in whose traditions rest much of this knowledge, continue a push for stronger representation at the committee.
Perhaps the single most critical issue to resolve in addressing neglected diseases is how to ensure there is money to pay for research and clinical trials, even when the consumer demand is small and its constituents poor. A group of experts under the auspices of the World Health Organization this week is attempting to address the problem.
Stringent intellectual property rules could hamper the spread of technology needed to fight climate change, an advisor to European Union policy-makers has warned.
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), a high-impact nonprofit organisation focussed on access to software in the broader scope of participation in the digital society, this week named named new leadership for the first time in nearly a decade since its inception.
Video is becoming an increasingly important communication tool on the web, but questions must be asked about its future, said speakers a recent conference. Will it be a medium of self-expression, available for all, or a translation of television to the internet, where content is provided by some and consumed by the rest? A gathering of technologists, academics, filmmakers and others in New York last week issued a call for a freer video culture.
An international coalition of consumer groups has issued a resolution calling into question global enforcement policy and offering core principles for policymakers to consider in setting new enforcement standards.
The World Customs Organization this week will try to reach agreement on a softened replacement group against counterfeiting and piracy that may defuse concerns of overreaching by customs officials. It also will consider a proposal to add an explicit focus on public health and safety to its enforcement activities.
The German Parliament on Thursday evening passed legislation that obliges internet service providers (ISPs) to filter websites allegedly containing child abuse material, by a vote of 389 to 146. The vote followed fierce debate about the secret filtering list to be put together by the German Federal Police and transmitted to ISPs once a day with only occasional checks by a five-member monitoring body. Opposition parties joined civil rights organisations in warning that Germany is introducing blocking architecture that was extensible and could be used to “censor“ other content without due process.
BANGKOK - Thailand plans to toughen its intellectual property protection law to punish, for the first time, buyers of products that breach copyright and trademark laws, aiming primarily at pirated music and movies and fake brand-name goods, a senior Thai official said Thursday.