Category Access to Knowledge/ Education

East African Community Doubles Efforts To Boost Local Pharmaceutical Production

Arusha, Tanzania – Pharmaceutical manufacturers in East Africa have joined forces to strengthen their production capacity to meet at least half of the region’s demand for affordable, quality medicines. The East African Community is supporting this ambitious goal through various initiatives, including a regional intellectual property policy to guide partner states on developing national legislation that fosters local pharmaceutical production.

United States Chided As TRIPS Scofflaw At WTO

A clause unfairly protecting a rum company’s US market by denying trademark rights quietly stuck into a US Congress appropriations bill in the deep of night in the late 1990s continues to haunt the halls of the World Trade Organization – but that does not seem to trouble US trade authorities. And this is not the only intellectual property-related case being met with US indifference, an irony for possibly the biggest proponent of IP rights in the world.

South Africa: Trampling Tradition – A Call For Support

On 5 March, the Shadow Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Wilmot James, submitted a Private Members’ Bill to the Office of the Speaker entitled the Protection of Traditional Knowledge Bill - a new traditional knowledge bill that would supplant the one recently sent back by the president of South Africa, Cobus Jooste writes.

Diverging Views On IPR Protection Needs In Africa Emerge At IP Workshop

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – Nigeria’s booming film industry, born in an intellectual property-free environment, was presented as a case study of how IP needs may vary depending on context during a recent workshop organised by the US Commerce Department. In parallel, representatives of multinational brands and law enforcement delivered a strong message on the gravity of counterfeit trade, highlighting its link to organised crime.