Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched a joint initiative with Impact Hub, an international community of social entrepreneurs. The initiative is a platform named "#Accelerate2030," aiming at supporting and promoting the most promising impact-driven ventures focusing on the UN Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs).
NAIROBI, Kenya (IP-Watch) -- A global database on non-tariff measures (NTMs) has been launched here at the 14th United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD 14). Also this week the World Investment Forum kicked off, the first such event since agreement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
A new publication analysing the relationship between intellectual property and access to science explores ways countries have developed to counter the potential barriers created by IP rights, and says patenting by universities is counterproductive.
NAIROBI, Kenya (IP-Watch) – The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 14th Session opened here yesterday, with leaders calling for deeper and broader cooperation between trade and development.
Days before a major meeting of the governing body of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), over 100 non-governmental organisations worldwide are calling for the organisation to maintain its development role and not help implement international and regional trade rules.
A bill introduced in Kenya’s parliament intended to streamline, govern and regulate the country’s information and communications technology (ICT) sector has been met with opposition from different quarters over fears that it could put ICT technicians out of practice and stifle the country’s innovation capacity if passed into law.
What do global innovators make of India’s new National Intellectual Property Rights Policy? A recent discussion on “India’s National IPR Strategy: A View from Global Innovators” in Washington DC attempted to assess the opportunities and challenges ahead from the perspective of American companies.
A top Ecuadoran official said today at the United Nations in Geneva that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s health is deteriorating after four years confined in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, while the United Kingdom and Sweden are ignoring the findings of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention which called for Assange’s release. The Ecuadoran Minister of Foreign Affairs also said Ecuador will carry on issuing compulsory licences for medicines as it sees fit, underlining the increasing role of intellectual property and the greater privatisation of knowledge.
The intergovernmental South Centre has raised the level of its activity on issues of relevance to the intellectual property community in recent weeks.
A new set of guidelines for pharmaceutical patent examination has been published by the United Nations Development Programme that seek to help reduce poor quality patents and ensure efficient market entry of generic products. The guidelines, written by a well-known advocate of access to medicines, aim at advising patent examiners in assessing the patentability requirements of applications relating to pharmaceutical products and processes.
NAIROBI, Kenya - As start-up and innovation centres spring up across Africa, Kenya - which birthed the continent’s tech movement - is emerging as one of its leading innovation nuclei. But concerns are intensifying here that young inventors are losing their innovations to conglomerates, in what is alleged as intellectual property theft or abuse.
NAIROBI, Kenya -- Kenya could disband its infant innovation agency and have its functions taken up by the state’s science, technology and innovation body, if changes suggested by the government to reform the science, technology and innovation (ST&I) sector are carried through.