Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Four of the world's most populous nations are in Southeast Asia and with roughly two-thirds of its population lacking access to medicines, the region holds promise for the cheaper generic drugs. Already, observers are taking note of how the region is changing the dynamics of the global business.
World Health Organization member states and official non-governmental observers will gather at the WHO headquarters this week for an open-ended meeting to analyse the feasibility of new models for financing research and development for diseases lacking sufficient market incentives and public policies.
A study compiling the results of two surveys on the need for reform of United Nations development activities was presented this week in the presence of US and Indian ambassadors who agreed on needed improvements, though with a North and South perspective.
As governments prepare to debate the European Union's overall budget for 2014-2020, European Parliament members and top scientists today warned that any cuts to research and innovation funding will risk the loss of a generation of scientists just when Europe needs them most.
A proposal of the European Patent Office President Benoît Battistelli to pay a collective reward to EPO staff in 2012 in view of the positive operating result of 2011 has stirred concerns about the kind of incentive this might give to EPO examiners.
The Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a health financing institution focused on the global South, is poised this week to select its next director – from the North. And while the selection process has been conducted in the utmost secrecy, confidential selection documents show that the list is down to four candidates, said to be from Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
An outside meeting of experts has prepared a report ahead of this month’s gathering of World Health Organization members hoping to agree on new models for financing research and development for diseases lacking adequate market mechanisms and public policies. These include neglected diseases that predominantly affect poor populations unable to pay high prices needed to defray R&D costs under the existing commercial model.
At last week's high-level meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) governments agreed to double financial flows toward biodiversity by 2015, the CBD has announced. They also came up with strategy to move forward on access and benefit-sharing of biodiversity.
Pro-Music, the international alliance of various stakeholders in the music industry promoting the use of legal services on the internet, has moved to give its website a facelift, nine years after it was launched back in 2003.
Copyright collective management and creators' organisations Monday accused digital technology industry group DIGITALEUROPE of trying to hijack a mediation process aimed at straightening out the EU's messy system of private copying and reprographic levies. In its 4 October paper setting out alternatives to device-based copyright levies, DIGITALEUROPE urged the European Commission to initiate comprehensive reform that includes replacing levies with some other forms of compensation to rights holders.
The World Health Organization advisory group on pandemic influenza preparedness met with pharmaceutical industry representatives, civil society members, and other stakeholders last week to move toward a recommendation on a partnership contribution formula to determine payment modalities for influenza virus sharing.
Internet firms continue to drive global economic growth and job increases in the information technology sector, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found in a new report.