Original news and analysis on international IP policy
On 29 September, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution on how to safeguard the public interest against the interests of the pharmaceutical industry.
As government negotiators dig into perhaps the final round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations this week in Atlanta, they may take comfort in knowing that nothing they are doing has to be shared with the public they represent until years after it is over. That's because a federal district court in Manhattan decided this week, in a closely watched Freedom of Information Act case brought by Intellectual Property Watch, that draft texts of the trade deal can be kept secret. The court did, however, cast doubt on the government's reasons for also keeping its communications with industry lobbyists from the public eye.
US President Obama told world leaders at the United Nations today that a nation that tries to repress its people is doomed to failure, and that the new measure of the strength of nations is the success of its people, including their knowledge and creativity. Access to information cannot be defeated due to technology and social media, and the desire of people to choose how they are governed, he said.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to be adopted this week at UN Headquarters, could fall short of its health targets unless the governments embark on “U-turn” changes to rectify the dysfunctions in global governance that undermine health, writes Daniele Dionisio.
A new paper by a Norwegian researcher finds that recent legislation efforts on plant variety protection in Africa go beyond the requirements of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV).
Several leading public health groups have sent a letter to United States Trade Representative and US Patent and Trademark Office director asking for more transparency on the US position on a request by least-developed countries to indefinitely extend their World Trade Organization intellectual property waiver on pharmaceutical products.
The Federal Circuit will soon hear Lexmark v. Impression Products, a case about ink cartridges. Impression, a foreign buyer, refills spent Lexmark cartridges and resells them in the United States. Impression claims that Lexmark, having sold the cartridges, has exhausted its patent rights, and cannot hold Impression liable for patent infringement. The Federal Circuit will address whether the US patent is exhausted with the sale of the patented product outside the US, write Burcu Kilic and Peter Maybarduk.
The Place des Nations, home to the United Nations in Geneva, is adorned with a temporary exhibition this week. The work of Italian artist Davide Dormino representing Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden was inaugurated this morning.
In a communication today, the European Commission said it agrees to support a least developed country request at the World Trade Organization to prolong indefinitely a current exemption on the enforcement of IP on pharmaceutical products. Now the decision moves to the EU member states.
The negotiating process to achieve post-2015 development goals has clarified the agenda that governments ought to follow until 2030. Unfortunately, due to vague terms and the lack of unequivocal definitions, a number of relevant issues still lie in uncertainty, writes Pietro Dionisio