Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Members of the World Intellectual Property Organization, in the company of indigenous groups from around the world, have entered into eight days of intensive negotiations to try to agree on a draft text for an instrument on the protection of genetic resources.
A new paper from the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) offers ideas on addressing misappropriation of genetic resources and traditional knowledge at the World Intellectual Property Organization.
With food demand and prices rising as the world crosses the threshold of 7 billion people, the need to find new medicines, concerns about the shrinking biodiversity and the effects of climate change may designate biotechnologies as the main response. Opinions differ on the way to address those issues, in particular about intellectual property rights attached to biotechnologies.
Legislative questions are being discussed on both sides of the Atlantic around the scope of patentability, and intellectual property rights on plants, seeds, molecules or methods, as well as exemptions that some think should be applied. The year ahead will see some decisions that might impact the biotechnology industry both in the United States and in Europe.
A private sector-led effort to compile a global register of geographical indications is gaining support, topped by a sizeable donation from the Italian government. The effort is being undertaken outside the World Trade Organization in spite of an agreed - but long stalled - mandate at WTO to create a register.
A range of some of the world’s top public and private partners in public health today announced an “unprecedented” level of cooperation to fight diseases primarily afflicting poorest populations worldwide for which there is insufficient research and development and inadequate health systems. But how the initiative will tie in with governments’ efforts at the World Health Organization to craft a global framework to address these issues remains to be seen.
Online piracy, patent reform and intellectual property issues relating to pharmaceuticals are among the top legislative and regulatory priorities for many stakeholder groups in the United States this year, but given that 2012 is an election year, chances are slim that Congress will push through anything that isn’t a top priority or that could cause too much partisan rancour.
This year could bring major changes in US intellectual property law. Congress and the nation’s courts will be confronting a variety of issues that have broad ramifications for copyrights, trademarks and patents. Here are some of the top developments to watch in 2012.
Current global institutional reforms of agricultural innovation systems and the commodification of crop diversity are not answering concerns regarding international equity in access to plant genetic resources, the handling of agricultural research, and the sharing of benefits arising from this research, according to a new book by Claudio Chiarolla, research fellow at the Paris-based Institut du développement durable et des relations internationales (IDDRI).
The most-read Intellectual Property Watch stories of 2011 demonstrated the versatility and range of our readers from around the globe, from an intense focus on international and national copyright issues to bilateral and plurilateral free trade agreements, to issues in India and Brazil, patent laws, patents in agriculture, scientific knowledge, and of course, policies emerging in Geneva at the World Intellectual Property Organization, World Trade Organization, World Health Organization and elsewhere at the multilateral level. Most of all, they tell the story of the year gone by, with clear signals of what's to come in 2012.
World Intellectual Property Organization members last week debated a possible new instrument to protect products with specific origins and characteristics.
The World Intellectual Property Organization patent law committee ended its meeting this week with status quo on all issues, after lively deliberations and new proposals but with all discussions left for further debate in 2012.
Two European-based organisations working in agriculture and development will launch a joint publication next week that will provide a guide for developing countries to consider geographical indications. The guide comes as the World Trade Organization and World Intellectual Property Organization hold meetings next week.