Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The Geneva Health Forum (GHF), taking place on 15-17 April in Geneva, will discuss the theme “Global Health: Interconnected Challenges, Integrated Solutions.” This year’s forum aims to encourage an “integrative approach” to global health, “which better captures the underlying causes of ill-health and recognises the commonalities that underlie people’s health around the world,” says GHF.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has launched an initiative with other agencies aimed at expanding global access to health products such as medicines. But the Fund has had some explaining to do about the initiative, which some say could encompass a plan to allow different prices based on national income levels.
The 2014 LES International Conference “Make the World Better through Licensing” will be held on 18-21 May in Moscow at The World Trade Center Moscow. It will be a unique IP event combining both a professionally interesting and productive program and the richest social entertainment, according to the organisers.
Among the participants are: Russian & foreign businessmen, financial officers, investors, scientists, patent & trademark attorneys and lawyers. The conference program will include six general sessions and 23 workshops. Both Russian and International experts will cover most current IP and related issues such as: BRICS & CIS countries as Emerging Markets; International Access to Technologies; Business & Legal Aspects of IP; IP in healthcare/biotechnology, aerospace, car industry, green technology, power engineering, sport, information technologies.
Confirmed speakers are from: Russian Innovation Center “Skolkovo”, Johnson & Johnson, Canon, L’Oreal, Tatneft, Sony Europe, Siemens AG, Porsche AG, LG Chemical, Philips, Novartis, TATA Technologies, GlaxoSmithKline, Boeing, Yandex and many others.
For more information and to register visit http://les2014.org/
The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) this week announced two new licencing agreements with the private sector joint venture ViiV Healthcare that will increase access to a new antiretroviral in countries hardest hit by HIV.
marcus evans is pleased to announce the IP Law Europe Summit taking place 2-3 June 2014 at Le Meridien Beach Plaza Monte Carlo in Monaco.
In the era of the global knowledge economy, the subject of IP has become increasingly contentious and publicly debated. Its reach has exploded across virtually every domain: policy, digital media, public health, human rights, and the environment. Meanwhile, never before has information been so easily replicable or technology so convergent.
The IP Law Europe Summit is the premium forum bringing together leading in-house IP counsel with international law firms, IP attorneys and legal services providers. The Summit offers regional IP executives an intimate environment for a focused discussion of key new drivers shaping the IP industry.
Key topics being discussed will include IP strategy and operations, cost-containment, latest developments in patent legislation in EU and US, technology and innovation, and more. Leading these discussions are senior IP executives from companies like WIPO, Microsoft, Swarovski, and Dolby International. Delegates will include senior executives responsible for IP decision-making in the areas of Patents, Trademark, Copyright, Litigation and/or Legal Affairs. Each participant at the summit will be eligible to earn SRA CPD credits.
Between session presentations and networking, in-house IP counsel and service providers engage in pre-scheduled, mutually selected one-on-one business meetings. Over the course of the event, each senior executive representing their service provider company is guaranteed a minimum of 10-12 meetings, each strictly timed to 30 minutes.
For more information, visit the online info sheet here: http://www.iplawsummiteurope.com/marketing_434
NEW YORK - “This is a very, very exciting time be in patent law,” Drew Hirshfeld, deputy commissioner for patent examination policy at the US Patent and Trademark Office, told a group of intellectual property lawyers last week.
In his keynote address to the 19-20 March Corporate IP Counsel meeting in Manhattan, Hirshfeld and a range of private sector speakers laid out a picture of a highly dynamic field, with legal and business opportunities and challenges changing every day.
The issue of medicines access for low-income people in developing countries has been of major concern to global health policymakers for years. A key issue is the inability of northern pharmaceutical producers to develop and distribute affordable medicines and recover their research and development costs.
As part of the effort to address this, a non-governmental group was formed in coordination with industry and other stakeholders to develop an index to rate companies’ efforts to ameliorate the situation.
Julia Fraser for Intellectual Property Watch recently sat down with Hans Hogerzeil, a former senior World Health Organization official and a top strategist for the Access to Medicine Index, to discuss the index’s impact, independence and the future.
Amid intensifying competition in the global economy, companies rely more heavily than ever on the advantages of trade secrets. This critical proprietary information includes, for example, market research, product plans, unique formulas and manufacturing methods, computer code and customer data - knowledge that companies build through years of hard work, experience and investment, writes Pamela Passman.
An innovative South African start-up is offering local university students a way around buying cheap pirated books with a legal print-on-demand service that slashes the price of expensive academic textbooks.
Japanese small and medium-sized venture companies and micro enterprises will receive a reduction on patent filing costs under the national "Industrial Competitiveness Enhancement Act" as of 1 April.
“Intellectual property, in general, is in a growth mode, and in a growth mode which is considerably in excess of either the national GDP growth rates or the world GDP growth rates,” World Intellectual Property Organisation Director General Francis Gurry said today.
KAMPALA - In the western terrains of Uganda, in a refugee camp, Dr. Moses Kizza Musaazi invented and is running a simple but ingenious scheme. Making environmentally friendly sanitary pads out of papyrus reeds. The pads, MakaPads sanitary pads, are the only trademarked biodegradable sanitary pads made in Africa. Dr. Musaazi developed the idea and technique while looking for a way to help school-going girls.