Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The Organization for an International Geographical Indications Network (oriGIn) launched a worldwide compilation of geographical indications today at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The compilation, which lists over 7,000 geographical indications, beyond providing a technical tool, is also presented as a tool of reconciliation.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) this month gathered a wide range of key stakeholders to have a frank discussion about how to solve rising global resistance to existing antibiotics. While not a negotiation, stakeholders in the expert group opened up and shared perspectives, leading to some informal conclusions. Among them: more public and private investment, and a shift in the R&D system to new-style incentives, are needed.
As the biennial World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference is drawing closer, a number of stakeholders are pushing for their priorities to be heard. For its part, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has called on WTO members to protect smallholder farmers.
After the new head of the World Health Organization provided his vision for his tenure of the global health institution this summer, the organisation is working on its next programme of work for the period 2019-2023. A preliminary concept note has been issued for public consideration. The note lays out priorities and new orientations and describes a financially sober, more efficient organisation, focused on measurable impact, set on aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and affirming its role as a multi-stakeholder platform of global governance on health, but stays clear of controversial issues, such as the affordability of medicines.
The escalating prices of medicines has become a growing global concern. Among many issues, intellectual property has been pointed to as providing monopolies that allow for unaffordable prices, in particular in developing countries. Though there is consensus among countries that IP is but one of the issues, the extent of the IP influence is not agreed. The use of compulsory licences as a way for developing countries to grant access to medicines to their populations was discussed during the World Trade Organization committee on intellectual property last week, with divergent opinions.
World Trade Organization committee members this week were asked to recommend to the upcoming ministerial conference whether to lift or indefinitely prolong a moratorium shielding intellectual property from complaints between members not involving a breach of a WTO agreement. Short of a consensus, the intellectual property committee will have to reconvene next month to try to find agreement. Separately, a two-year extension was granted to countries not yet having ratified the public health amendment to WTO IP rules.
Among all the high-profile issues on the stage and the countless side meetings and cultural celebrations happening at the annual World Intellectual Property Organization annual Assemblies, there were some interesting facts and figures presented about the UN agency itself.
The importance of intellectual property protection for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and the challenges they might encounter to ensure that protection was the focus of an event organised this week by a group of developed and middle-income countries at the World Trade Organization. According to the group, the event aimed at drawing connections between IP policies that are under discussion in the WTO IP committee.
BERLIN -- With antimicrobial resistance (AMR) on the rise worldwide there is no time to lose for developing new antibiotic drugs, experts said during one of the last panels of this year’s World Health Summit in Berlin Tuesday. As in several other rounds during the three-day event, industry representatives underlined that there is an issue with the business model due to high risk and low return of investment for research in this area.
Members of a 2008 World Trade Organization coalition are trying to rekindle a negotiation to provide the same level of protection granted to wines and spirits to other geographical indications, and to grant intellectual property protection to genetic resources and traditional knowledge. The discussion might not make it to the December WTO ministerial, but the group hopes to open a “fresh window” for discussion.