Original news and analysis on international IP policy
A group of civil society organisations and health experts have sent a letter to delegates to this month’s annual World Health Assembly urging support for a study on the delinkage of the costs of research and development from the prices of cancer medicines. Member states reportedly met on the issue today and are still undecided.
The United States Department of Defense has announced that it intends to grant Sanofi Pasteur, a French pharmaceutical corporation, exclusive rights to develop a vaccine for the Zika virus. The decision follows outcry from the public and civil society groups over concerns of affordability and accessibility in taking such a step.
A global survey on internet security and trust found users are worried about privacy, and in particularly wary of cybercriminals, internet companies, and governments. This lack of trust is hurting the potential of electronic commerce, the survey revealed.
The participation of small-scale farmers at the table of international negotiations and the protection of agricultural biodiversity are key to food security, according to the Quaker United Nations Office, which published last month two policy briefs with a list of recommendations.
Civil society and farmers allege communication blackout from by the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) about a protocol protecting new plant varieties. The 2015 protocol was highly criticised by those organisations as endangering traditional practices of African farmers. Draft regulations could not be adopted in December, but the regional organisation, according to the civil society and farmer groups, is keeping the outcome of the December meeting secret.
An international civil society tribunal has found that agro-business multinational Monsanto conducts activities that violate basic human rights. The five international judges of the Monsanto Tribunal presented their condemning verdict yesterday.
CHICAGO, Illinois - US President Trump Monday signed the repeal of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) broadband privacy rules passed by both houses of Congress in March. The decision by Congress and the new administration to smash the FCC broadband privacy rules, data security and security breach notification obligations do not bode well for internet users who want to have a say with regard to their confidentiality, according to a range of tech experts.
It’s early February in Tchaourou district, Borgou in Benin, and a pregnant woman is admitted to hospital. Her premature baby is born by caesarean section but she dies a day later on February 12th. It turns out she had Lassa fever, a deadly viral haemorrhagic disease. But that’s only discovered after the baby is discharged from hospital and taken to northern Togo. The newborn also becomes ill and is taken to hospital for treatment.
Concerns continue to grow among civil society about provisions in a major trade agreement in the Asian region. Of specific worry is the intellectual property chapter containing in particular a data exclusivity clause, and the linkage between the investment chapter and the IP chapter.
A range of civil society organisations today issued a letter to European Union leadership urging support for a World Health Organization resolution that mandates a feasibility study on a fund for cancer research and development that delinks R&D costs from the price of health technologies.
The European Parliament announced today that its Legal Affairs Committee approved new draft legislation to bring European Union law into line with an international treaty providing copyright exceptions for special format books for visually impaired people. Limitations to the scope of the treaty, such as commercial availability or compensation, were disregarded by Parliament members.
As negotiations take place this week, an evaluation of the impact of one of the TRIPS-plus measures of the Mercosur/EU FTA on the prices of medicines in Brazil has been released. Based on the draft of the agreement, by their calculations, an additional USD 444 million would be necessary to be spent by the public health system for the purchase of six medicines alone, write Marcela Fogaça Vieira and Gabriela Costa Chaves.