Original news and analysis on international IP policy
An alternative initiative to promote access to medicine with a method mimicking market mechanisms means to create additional incentives for health innovation, authors of the proposal said yesterday. But other health actors have reservations.
A public event was organised yesterday to discuss how the Health Impact Fund (HIF) could fit within existing structures and what challenges it could face.
Negotiators at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week will address longstanding efforts by many WIPO members to begin in earnest text-based negotiations for a tool to better protect traditional knowledge and genetic resources.
Negotiations to protect and preserve biodiversity are in a delicate place, as proponents of stronger protection attempt to navigate parallel discussions at different intergovernmental agencies.
PARIS- The cosmetics industry is about beauty, but it is also increasingly about biodiversity as consumers show a growing awareness of environmental issues and the loss of biodiversity. As a wishful wink to the 10th meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya in October 2010, the Union for Ethical Biotrade (UEBT) held a conference at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris on 15 April.
Biotechnology, international trade, and pandemic influenza were among the topics discussed at the outset of this year’s Geneva Health Forum.
The UN Convention on Biological Diversity last month hailed Cali, Colombia as the birthplace of a protocol they hope will lead to an international regime on access and benefit-sharing by their October 2010 deadline. But, while it is clear the late March negotiation in Cali brought significant progress, participants reported difficult disagreements and in the final days, signs that there is yet more work to be done.
Advocates of stronger protection of geographical indications are working to develop greater awareness in Geneva policy circles, trying to win over countries reluctant to adopt a specific GI protection system.
The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), an intergovernmental agency that provides technical advice and guidelines for the identification and protection of new plants, will have a new leader for the first time in a decade, it was decided Friday.
The UN Human Rights Council yesterday extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food for three years. The resolution, A, adopted without a vote, requests that the special rapporteur “continue to monitor the evolution of the…
Delegates to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity today begin the last formal meeting before a late-2010 deadline to negotiate an agreement ensuring fair and equitable access to and benefits from the world’s scarce biological resources.