Category Development

Stakeholders Collectively Designing Future Of Artificial Intelligence

Designing a world where humans have to share space with robots is not an easy task. Several initiatives are looking at ways to address issues linked to the main fuel of artificial intelligence: data. Such issues include privacy, data ownership and sharing, but also making sure that artificial intelligence will not widen the existing digital divide. Speakers at a global summit last week provided insight on ongoing efforts to understand and best tackle the inevitable and sometimes unforeseen problems of this new territory.

At WIPO, Water Entrepreneurs Meet Investors

Entrepreneurs with innovative water technologies came to the World Intellectual Property Organization last week to find new partnerships and investors. The urgent need to work together and build partnerships in the water sector was the overall message of the event. “Nobody can do the work alone,” Nicholas Niggli, Republic & State of Geneva's Director General, Economic Development, Research & Innovation, said, referring to the many existing water challenges.

A Brief Analysis Of Nepal’s First National IP Policy

Earlier this year, the Nepal Government released its long-awaited first national intellectual property policy, after becoming the first least developed country (LDC) to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 23 April 2004.

US Supreme Court Adopts International Exhaustion Of Patents (Part II): Addressing the New Competitive Landscape

Frederick M. Abbott writes: The US Supreme Court has created a new competitive landscape with its decision adopting international exhaustion of patents. For the pharmaceutical sector, we can expect an initial period of uncertainty as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) assesses the regulatory framework affected by the decision and as competing stakeholders advance their interests. In an earlier Inside Views contribution, I addressed the principal impact of the decision on the US pharmaceuticals market: downward pricing pressure.[1] This follow-on addresses some of the regulatory and access issues affected by the decision, observing that parallel trade in pharmaceutical products is a long-standing practice, that recently introduced US legislative proposals may shape the regulatory framework in the United States, and concluding with ways that access programs in favor of developing countries are protected.

IP And The Public Interest Premieres At WTO TRIPS Council Next Week

It has become a tradition at the World Trade Organization committee on intellectual property to have an agenda item on intellectual property and innovation, and next week's meeting is no exception. More noticeable on the agenda of the committee next week is an item on intellectual property and the public interest that addresses compulsory licensing.

REGISTER NOW! The Global Debate On Intellectual Property, Trade And Development: Past, Present and Future

The Global Debate on Intellectual Property, Trade and Development: Past, Present and Future
A Conference in Honour of Pedro Roffe

WIPO Hosts Event To Boost Entrepreneurship, Investment In Safe Water Technology

An unusual meeting is taking place at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week, bringing together entrepreneurs in water and sanitation technology and business models with prospective investors, including clean-tech venture capitalists, private equity and corporate investors.

World Health Assembly Adopts Resolution Supporting Tax On Tobacco, Alcohol, Sugar

Cancer, diabetes, heart disease and chronic respiratory diseases are killing millions of people each year, making noncommunicable diseases the leading global cause of human deaths, many of them premature. This week, the World Health Assembly endorsed an updated set of policy options for countries to help them with the prevention and control of those diseases. On the list is a suggestion for tax increases on tobacco products and alcoholic beverages, and the reduction of salt intake. Supported by many countries, it was resisted by the United States and Italy.

Resolution On Cancer Hailed By WHO Members, Easily Adopted In Committee

It is not a mystery, cancer has been spreading for decades, in particular in low and-middle income countries, and is not stopping its course in the foreseeable future. Members of the World Health Organization in committee yesterday adopted a resolution to improve prevention, diagnostics, treatment, and palliative care for cancer, in statements stripped of controversy.