Original news and analysis on international IP policy
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen Proposed changes to Kenya’s intellectual property rules, which could negatively impact the possibility to import cheaper medicines, were recently withdrawn at the last minute, according to local sources who did not rule out the proposal’s…
Par Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen A l’occasion d’une rencontre qui s’est tenue du 4 au 8 décembre, réunissant des Etats membres de l’Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS) et d’autres parties prenantes, un groupe de travail a jeté les bases…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen Switzerland has begun a new kind of collaboration at the national level with the aim of moving beyond the old “patents are good/patents are bad” debate, particularly when it comes to intellectual property and public…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen The United States has busily negotiated bilateral free trade agreements with a variety of developing countries in recent years, and now appears to be using these to influence those countries’ positions in multilateral bodies such…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen During a 4-8 December meeting of some 100 World Health Organization (WHO) member states and other stakeholders, the foundation was laid for discussions of a global plan for providing medicines for diseases predominantly affecting poor…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen Participants in this week’s ground-breaking meeting of a World Health Organization group working to stimulate research on neglected diseases hailed the cooperative spirit of the group after three days. But early in the 7 December…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen After a slow start in a weeklong meeting on intellectual property and public health, World Health Organization (WHO) member states appear to have begun discussing the possible substance of a plan to ensure that medical…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen The biotechnology industry has proposed to change the international generic naming of medicine ingredients, which at the moment are public property, into unique names for each medicine, making it harder to substitute them with cheaper…
By William New In its bilateral negotiation with the United States in order to join the World Trade Organization, Russia appears to have agreed to intellectual property rights standards that push those of the WTO and US law to new…
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen Submissions to the World Health Organization (WHO) online public consultation on the intergovernmental working group on public health, innovation and intellectual property show that the debate is quite polarised, and that the group is therefore…