Original news and analysis on international IP policy
By Kaitlin Mara A confidential draft text circulated recently among some World Trade Organization members reveals an attempt to consolidate separate proposals aimed at the protection of product names with location-related associations and characteristics (called geographical indications) and at the…
By Kaitlin Mara
Intellectual property is a useful leveraging tool for developing countries eager to see the creation of a global access and benefit-sharing regime on genetic resource use, said a recent panel on biodiversity protections in international law.
"Benefit-sharing was viewed as an integral part of the main bargain between developed and developing countries" when the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was first formed, said Timothy Hodges, a Canadian official who co-chairs an access and benefit-sharing working group under the CBD.
By Kaitlin Mara An association of producers of geographical indications – product names associated with a particular place and characteristics – is promoting the idea that extending the high-level protection of geographic indications currently enjoyed by wines and spirits to…
By Kaitlin Mara The final decisions of the ninth and most recent meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) organising body have been released, which include the breakthrough results of a work plan for achieving an international access and…
By Tatum Anderson for Intellectual Property Watch Indian generic manufacturers may be allowed to export a cheaper HIV/AIDS treatment to middle-income countries if US pharmaceutical company Gilead fails to win a patent for the drug in India. And a turnaround…
[Note: the final version of the chair’s text is now available on the WIPO website.] By William New World Intellectual Property Organization members discussing a work plan for the committee on patent law on Thursday finished work for the year…
By William New World Intellectual Property Organization members addressing international patent policy this week may end work early after an apparent agreement to recommend the continuation of the committee next year and a possible focus on some 20 issues. The…
Wagdy Sawahel pour Intellectual Property Watch Les réactions de la communauté scientifique égyptienne sont mitigées à la suite de l’autorisation par l’Égypte de cultiver et de commercialiser une variété de maïs résistante aux organismes nuisibles. Cette annonce marque la première…
Por Wagdy Sawahel para Intellectual Property Watch El hecho de que Egipto haya autorizado recientemente el cultivo y la comercialización de una variedad de maíz resistente a plagas, lo que marcó la primera introducción legal de cultivos modificados genéticamente (MG)…
Par Kaitlin Mara Le 9 juin, l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC) a publié deux rapports sur l’état d’avancement des négociations relatives à la création d’un registre des indications géographiques (noms de produits associés à un lieu et à certaines caractéristiques),…
Por Kaitlin Mara La Organización Mundial del Comercio dio a conocer el lunes dos informes sobre la situación de las negociaciones relativas a un sistema de registro para las indicaciones geográficas (o IG, que se refieren a nombres de productos…
By Wagdy Sawahel for Intellectual Property Watch With Egypt’s recent approval of the cultivation and commercialisation of a pest-resistant corn variety that marked the first legal introduction of genetically modified crops into the Arab world, the Egyptian scientific community is…