Original news and analysis on international IP policy
World Intellectual Property Organization members this week agreed to a year-long plan to intensively negotiate for a legal instrument(s) on the protection of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore. Next year’s annual WIPO assembly in October will decide on whether to schedule a diplomatic conference to finalise the instrument.
The Union Cabinet of India has approved ratification of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing, a measure that provides a tool against biopiracy. The 4 October action comes on the eve of the 11th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Farmers' needs are not addressed by the current intellectual property framework or by innovation, according to panellists at the World Trade Organization Public Forum this week, and farmers should be invited to participate in international negotiations directly impacting their livelihood. Meanwhile, the African continent is seeking a way to address the food security problem, faced with a growing population and dire need to modernise their agriculture, other panellists said.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit released a decision today (16 August) on the patentability of genes in yet another twist to the so-called Myriad case. At stake was the patentability of two human genes associated with hereditary breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Myriad Genetics' patents were challenged by the Association for Molecular Pathology.
This month, the Indian Supreme Court will hear final arguments in a challenge by the pharmaceutical company Novartis against the Indian Patent Office’s rejection of a patent for the leukemia drug, Glivec. The Court’s ruling will have profound implications for…
NEW DELHI - The “Nagoya Protocol,” an international agreement struck in the Japanese town of Nagoya in October 2010, has nearly 100 signatory countries, and is a major talking point in the international discourse on biodiversity. But ratification by the governments of these countries remains painfully slow, and the process towards it fraught with daunting challenges, as was evident last week during a key inter-governmental meeting in the Indian capital New Delhi. In an interview with Intellectual Property Watch, the new head of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity had much to say about intellectual property rights.
The last session of the World Intellectual Property Organization committee on the protection of folklore before the annual General Assembly promises to be lively as the prospect of a potential treaty exacerbates stronghold positions. The treaty fervently supported by developing countries as a way to protect their cultural heritage and biodiversity has met a more cautious view from developed countries.
A key committee of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing treaty aimed at ensuring fair sharing of the benefits of genetic resources is meeting this week in New Delhi.
RIO DE JANEIRO - Many of the technologies that can make the world more sustainable are available today. But how to transfer such green technologies to those most in need of them remains a question on which there are starkly divergent views - even after last week’s much-anticipated Rio+20 leaders’ summit.
At its annual meeting this week in Boston, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), put its name to a report promoting the advantages of intellectual property rights for the industry.
A draft of the outcome document for this week’s Rio+20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, said to be close to the final version, shows where governments have placed their focus. It appears that technology transfer is well-recognised, intellectual property rights to a lesser extent, but firm actions in these areas may still be to come.
While the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office is reviewing the so-called "tomato case," collateral questions are being raised about the consequences on plant innovation of the non-patentability of some processes.