Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Daniela Bagozzi writes: Ten years of efforts in treatment for priority diseases has yielded impressive results both in terms of lives and dollars saved. To maintain progress in a volatile and financially tight environment countries and the international community will need to increase pressure on quality and healthy generic competition.
An informal drafting group finalised a text today, proposing to convene a technical meeting to help identify new health research and development projects for diseases that primarily affect poor communities.
Over the past week or so, least-developed country (LDC) members of the World Trade Organization have held their own in a closed room with the world’s biggest economies as they worked out details of a request by the LDCs to extend the deadline by which they must enforce WTO intellectual property rules.
The issue of access to medicines is on the agenda at this week’s World Health Assembly (WHA) and public health advocates are seeking greater clarity and detail about the latest member state effort to address failings in the global system of research and development for medical products.
The European Patent Office is continuing to grant patents on conventional plants despite demands from the European Parliament and the German Parliament that the patent office refrain from granting such patents, the coalition of non-governmental organisations called "No patents on seeds" said in a release.
Members of all political party groups in the European Parliament in a debate in Strasbourg yesterday asked the European Commission to scrap several conditions demanded by the European Union and other Western countries in the World Intellectual Property Organization negotiations for the draft treaty on copyright exceptions for the blind and visually impaired.
While the World Health Organization’s latest health numbers show that great progress has been made in improving the health in low-income countries, significant inequalities remain between people living in the richest and poorest countries. Access to even the most basic medicines continues to be a major challenge due to high prices.
The United States Supreme Court found today that a farmer who buys patented seeds may not reproduce them through planting and harvesting without the right holder's permission. The case, known as Bowman v. Monsanto, revolved around patent exhaustion. The Supreme Court was to decide whether patent exhaustion applied to patented seeds after their authorised sale.
Prof. Sean Flynn asks whether US sanctions of Ukraine under the US Special 301 program violates World Trade Organization rules. He also asks whether the operation of watch lists threatening sanctions for intellectual property matters could be challenged under the WTO even prior to any sanction going into effect.
While diplomats are trying to find consensus on an international instrument to protect traditional knowledge at the World Intellectual Property Organization, some countries are establishing systems to protect their traditional knowledge domestically. South Africa will be launching on 24 May its National Recordal System to catalogue its indigenous knowledge.
Cape Town, South Africa - Amid growing calls for the controversial Protection of State Information bill to be referred to the Constitutional Court of South Africa, open data activists are fighting a separate but related battle for government to release its data to the public.
Internet users who merely read or view copyright-protected webpages enjoy a temporary copying exception under European Union and United Kingdom law and do not need permission from rights holders, the UK Supreme Court said in a 17 April ruling.