Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The recent commem-oration of Earth Day and World IP Day raised the importance of IP rights to innovation and jobs, says David Hirschmann of the US Chamber of Commerce. How about calling it “Green Innovation Week”?
As the need to protect the global environment grows, questions are being raised about how intellectual property might help incentivise the development of the right kinds of technology and its transfer to places that need it most.
Farmers’ associations, environmental, aid and development organisations together with anti-patent activists of the free software movement met this week for one of the largest anti-patent rallies in Munich.
Evidence-based policymaking is essential to combat climate change, and ensure the transfer of climate-change-related technology, said a members of a panel held at the World Intellectual Property Organization. But it can be hard to determine where to find that evidence.
A dominant global producer of enzymes is arguing that enzymes in biotechnology can make a significant contribution to global environment improvement, but this effort comes with heavy patenting by the company.
Sidney Rosenzweig of the Progress & Freedom Foundation writes that some countries, such as China, want to take advantage of new environmental technologies without having to pay, and are advocating the use of compulsory licences to access them.
Five new studies on select patent-related topics and informal, open-ended consultations on global issues are the key elements of future work for a World Intellectual Property Organization committee that wrapped up its meeting late Friday.
Addressing the challenge of climate change will require technological solutions and the dissemination of those solutions to as many users as possible. A panel at the World Intellectual Property Organization Tuesday asked how intellectual property law might help or hinder that transfer, and what role the organisation might play in creating the right policy.
The committee on patents at the World Intellectual Property Organization is set to be re-energised next week as it tackles four new reports, and addresses an ongoing question of the relationship of patent rights to wider policy issues on climate change and other environmental issues, public health, and food security.
The genetic revolution has come to food, as debates over how to deal with future pressures of population and climate change look to agricultural technology in hope of answers. But questions still remain over who owns the technology, who will do the research, and what forms of - and even whether - biotechnology is appropriate to human needs and the needs of smallholding farmers.
Patent reform, universal health care, and intellectual property rights protection of new health and environmental technologies are critical not only for the biotechnology industry but for improvements in public health, the president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) said Thursday.
By Kaitlin Mara The importance of the Chinese economy as both a manufacturing giant and, increasingly, as a consumer of manufactured goods makes it clear that the country must play a key role in simultaneous global efforts to combat the…