Original news and analysis on international IP policy
In what could be compared to an obstacle course, World Intellectual Property Organization members agreed late at night yesterday on the future work of a committee working on the development dimension of the organisation's activities.
With the launch of a new report concerning research and development for diseases predominately afflicting developing countries, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) today convened a panel of public health specialists to discuss the findings.
A World Intellectual Property Organization committee meeting this week to assess the development dimension of WIPO activities heard the progress report of the director general. Developing countries took the opportunity to claim that the mandate of the committee was not completed, in particular because the development dimension was kept out of two important WIPO bodies.
As World Intellectual Property Organization members engage this week in discussions about the extent of change to the UN agency’s development orientation, a new substantive proposal for reform has been put forward based on an external review of WIPO technical assistance.
The United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization is by its nature a crossroads of IP technical expertise and global public policy wrangling. But the difference between the two became more pronounced at last week’s meeting of the WIPO Standards Committee, according to participants.
Once seen as a rising star on the global public health scene, the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is in the throes of a top-down reform as it seeks to tailor its efforts to meet new realities, especially reductions in funding. While the new administration works to improve performance, a confidential document obtained by Intellectual Property Watch shows the terms on which departing staff is being asked to separate from the international organisation.
A recent book comes in time for the international policy debates coming to a head over access to medicines, intellectual property rights and public health in developing countries.
Executive Director Ellen 't Hoen is departing the Medicines Patent Pool, the cutting edge UN spin-off project that works to lower prices on and stimulate new development of HIV medicines and other products through negotiating voluntary licence agreements. According to a release, 't Hoen has fulfilled the mission of guiding the organisation from a startup onto "firm footing" and has informed the Board that she will leave on 1 May.
A letter co-signed by 49 former staff members of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development denouncing efforts by some countries to muffle the institution's voice was released yesterday at a press conference.
In 2010, institutions in Albania created a strategy to help enforce intellectual property rights within five years. Intellectual Property Watch recently conducted a written Q and A with Vladimir Nika, Albanian office director for the Eastern European law firm PETOŠEVIĆ, on the progress and prospects for the Albanian legislature’s implementation of the 2010 IPR enforcement strategy.
The quadrennial conference of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) sets the course of the UN body work for the next four years. The mandate of the conference has evolved since its creation to become mainly a provider of research, policy analysis and technical assistance to developing countries. This time around, the conference will serve as a wide-ranging forum for trade and development issues, and intellectual property issues will haunt discussions in several areas.
The UN World Intellectual Property Organization has responded to a question about its provision of technical assistance to North Korea, saying it is standard procedure as authorised by its member states hoping to bring developing countries on board the global IP system.