Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The International Organisation of la Francophonie in collaboration with French pharmaceutical umbrella organisation "les Entreprises du médicaments," organised a roundtable on non-communicable diseases on the eve of the annual World Health Assembly.
Several health ministers as well as various stakeholders were invited to discuss "the fight against non-communicable diseases: a shared responsibility" on 18 May.
As the World Health Assembly, a new partnership has been launched by three major public health actors in the field of HIV treatment. The initiative is meant to find improved treatments for children suffering from HIV/AIDs. Although all actors agree that significant progress has been made on adult treatments, children-specific medicines are still lacking.
A new report from the World Health Organization concludes that prices of HIV treatments vary greatly between middle-income countries (MICs), often depending on patent landscape, licensing agreements, whether drugs were sourced from originator companies, and regulatory approval. For third-line treatments, the price of drugs remains a challenge for all, with newer products more likely to be patented in key countries of production.
“Governments have few sources of leverage over increasingly globalised food systems - but public procurement is one of them,” the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to adequate food states in a new report. The right to food should be included in public food purchasing according to five principles in order to make food systems fairer and more sustainable, he said.
Relations between European Patent Office (EPO) staff and senior officials, already tense due to work issues with President Benoît Battistelli, have been further undermined by the continuing presence of Vice-President Željko Topić, according to a source close to the situation. Claims about Topić's suitability for office by one of his former employees at the Croatian State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) have now reached the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), while a petition by the Association for the Advancement of the Rule of Law (Juris Protecta) in Croatia has been filed in the European Parliament.
The Council of the European Union reaffirmed the crucial role of freedom of expression in democratic society in the online and offline world by adopting a new set of EU human rights guidelines. This includes explicit limitations on restrictions of copyright and internet operators.
The Geneva IP delegates list is updated! As a special feature for our subscribers, Intellectual Property Watch has assembled a new list of many of the leading government delegates working on intellectual property issues in Geneva.
BASEL -- Students from around the world are gathering momentum to challenge their universities’ licensing policies and research and development systems. That was one of the messages emerging from the annual meeting of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) Europe.
A recent book, “The Moral Dimensions of Intellectual Property Rights,” by Seven Ang of the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, explores the philosophical implications of moral terms included in IP rights statutes.
The fight for copyright reform has become a secondary issue, it seems, amidst calls to take back the internet from “evil” intelligence services at the 14th edition of re:publica, the mega-conference on all things digital that took place in Berlin last week.