Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The United Nations Economic and Social Council, a key coordinating body meeting this summer in Geneva, is considering ways to move nations faster toward global public health goals, with a warning from developing countries that intellectual property rights should not interfere with access to medical products and innovation.
A conference at the World Intellectual Property Organization exploring and clarifying the connection between its work and several major public policy issues ended Tuesday with a look at public health and food security.
Interview With Ellen ‘t Hoen, Senior IP Advisor At UNITAID, author of "The Global Politics of Pharmaceutical Monopoly Power."
NAIROBI - Three HIV/AIDS patients in Kenya announced Tuesday they will petition the country's Constitutional Court to declare a new anti-counterfeiting act illegal because it could deny them access to generic medicines. The move, which has the support of public health groups across the country, seeks to have the 2008 Anti-Counterfeiting Act made unconstitutional on the grounds that it could rob them of their right to life.
NAIROBI - Drug companies routinely violate World Health Organization ethical guidelines when advertising and promoting their products in East Africa, according to a new study released Thursday.
Indigenous people and governments like the United States' may be able to help each other, especially when it comes to protecting traditional knowledge while also using it combat global crises like climate change, says Terry Williams of the Tulalip Tribes. But additional protection for traditional knowledge is needed.
NAIROBI - An influential manufacturers' lobbying group in Kenya is pushing the government to start enforcing an anti-counterfeiting law within weeks, despite fears from public health advocates that the new rules will impede access to generic drugs and set an unwanted precedent in East Africa.
South Africa could become the first developing country to permit authors to be paid when libraries lend their books if an authors’ group gets it way, but the proposal is likely to spur strong opposition from access-to-knowledge advocates and libraries.
Perhaps the single most critical issue to resolve in addressing neglected diseases is how to ensure there is money to pay for research and clinical trials, even when the consumer demand is small and its constituents poor. A group of experts under the auspices of the World Health Organization this week is attempting to address the problem.
本周，世界海关组织将努力达成协议，就反假冒伪劣和剽窃问题成立一个软化的工作组，代替以前的工作组，以便可以化解人们有关海关官员手伸得太长的关切。它还将考虑通过一项建议，在执法活动中把重点明确放到公共卫生和安全方面。