Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Member governments of the World Intellectual Property Organization today agreed on the first work programme for the committee on patent law in nearly five years. The delicate accord, reached after a long week of mostly closed negotiations, was quickly hailed by some as reflecting a new reality for the international patent system with stronger recognition of emerging economies’ interests.
This week, global attention will be focussed on hopes to reach an international agreement aimed at giving the world a better chance to reduce the loss of biodiversity and ensure benefits are being shared. Intellectual Property Watch will be in Nagoya, Japan to report on the negotiations.
The chair of World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) today circulated a text reflecting possible elements of future work for the committee. The text, which is now the subject of informal discussions, includes key parts of proposals put forward earlier in the week.
A new report released today by the World Health Organization found that 17 neglected tropical diseases can be controlled. If strategies set out in the report are implemented widely, “they can substantially reduce the disease burden, breaking a cycle of infection, disability and lost opportunities that keep people in poverty, WHO Director General Margaret Chan said in a press release.
Patents aren't what they used to be at the World Intellectual Property Organization. Discussions to come up with a work plan at the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) this week and in recent meetings point to the possibility of a sea change in thinking over what matters about intellectual property policy and law.
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A leading indigenous negotiator for a UN protocol on biodiversity access and benefit sharing says the process will likely yield a highly diluted, rights-poor protocol and that Indigenous Peoples' negotiating leverage is slipping.
The round of negotiations in Tokyo last week on the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will be the last in the several-year long process to come to a final agreement, negotiators have said. The latest text - along with highlighted issue areas on which certain countries still have reservations - will be released before the end of the week, negotiators told Intellectual Property Watch.
The United States’ search for ways to spark its job growth has led to a focus on intellectual property rights, and this week several significant developments boiled over.
The United States National Institutes of Health has become the first patent holder to join the newly created Medicines Patent Pool, a project of drug purchasing mechanism UNITAID. Public health organisations hailed the move as key step in the right direction but said there is still much work to do.
The adoption of 1997 landmark environmental agreement the Kyoto Protocol caused a surge in environmental innovation, but the countries which are innovating and the licensees of this technology are limited, finds a newly released study making use of patent data to track where technological responses to climate change are coming from as well as the licensing practices of the technology owners.
Substantive progress eluded the negotiators of a draft protocol on biodiversity access and benefit sharing last week in Montreal, according to participating sources. The third attempt at finding consensus on key aspects of the text was unsuccessful and negotiations will carry on at the major United Nations meeting on biodiversity next month in Japan.