Original news and analysis on international IP policy
COPENHAGEN - A new draft climate change text on development and transfer of technology, obtained by Intellectual Property Watch and available to subscribers, was issued and under discussion at COP15 this afternoon.
Le groupe d’experts sur les financements innovants pour la recherche et le développement, réuni sous les auspices de l'Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS), a tenu sa troisième et dernière réunion du 30 novembre au 2 décembre. Le rapport de ce comité très secret devrait être communiqué aux Etats membres dans les semaines qui viennent, selon certaines sources.
Confidential documents related to the World Health Organization Expert Working Group on innovative financing for research and development surfaced today, revealing the group’s thinking as well as pharmaceutical industry thinking about the WHO process. The documents immediately raised concern about possible undue access to the process by industry, but the WHO told Intellectual Property Watch the industry group was not supposed to have them.
COPENHAGEN - While intellectual property rights has been ‘the elephant in the room’ in the climate change negotiations so far, officials predict that it could become the subject of heated negotiations - even at a higher political level - during the ongoing high-level meeting in Copenhagen. On the third day of the meeting, IP issues had already appeared in a proposed negotiation text.
The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) today announced the appointment of a new director of intellectual property and trade, effective 7 December. Meanwhile, in the United States, new coordinator for IP enforcement has been cleared.
Patenting of biotechnologies is a growing trend and is increasingly raising questions about legal and ethical implications and a lack of harmonisation, according to speakers at a recent World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) symposium.
An expert working group on innovative financing for research and development, meeting under the auspices of the World Health Organization, held its third and final meeting last week, with a report from the secretive group expected to be released to member states in the coming weeks, according to sources.
US software giant Microsoft said Thursday that users globally have started to join the fight against software piracy by sending in over 150,000 reports about problems with fake Microsoft products over the last two years.
The World Trade Organization today wrapped up its first ministerial meeting in four years with no decisions or breakthroughs (as expected) but an informal agreement to consider by March whether members can complete the longstanding round of negotiations in 2010. Meanwhile, intellectual property issues played a tangential role in ministers’ discussions, but made several notable appearances.
Technology transfer is essential to the mitigation of climate change but empirical data on the subject is scarce, according to panellists at a parallel event to the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting. An initiative has been launched by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) to identify potential barriers to the transfer of clean technologies. Preliminary outcomes of the project were presented yesterday. One of those outcomes is a new classification scheme.
NAIROBI - At the headquarters of UNITAID and other groups seeking to boost access to HIV/AIDS medicine, the notion of a patent pool where drug companies would combine their intellectual property is seen as an important way to drive down drug costs.
In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, home of AIDS activist Nelson Otwoma, the patent pool is a matter of life and death.
A United Nations group that has been hard at work laying out recommendations for how to effectively integrate intellectual property into secured financing law is heading into the final phase.