Original news and analysis on international IP policy
NAIROBI - An influential manufacturers' lobbying group in Kenya is pushing the government to start enforcing an anti-counterfeiting law within weeks, despite fears from public health advocates that the new rules will impede access to generic drugs and set an unwanted precedent in East Africa.
An expert body under the World Health Organization tasked with finding innovative solutions for financing research for needed medicines concluded its second official meeting Wednesday, working on a process to analyse possible mechanisms. The WHO afterward appeared to address concerns – which included a civil society letter – by insisting there would be more transparency in the negotiating process, but did not provide assurance that potential conflicts of interest would be properly addressed.
South Africa could become the first developing country to permit authors to be paid when libraries lend their books if an authors’ group gets it way, but the proposal is likely to spur strong opposition from access-to-knowledge advocates and libraries.
Perhaps the single most critical issue to resolve in addressing neglected diseases is how to ensure there is money to pay for research and clinical trials, even when the consumer demand is small and its constituents poor. A group of experts under the auspices of the World Health Organization this week is attempting to address the problem.
Stringent intellectual property rules could hamper the spread of technology needed to fight climate change, an advisor to European Union policy-makers has warned.
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), a high-impact nonprofit organisation focussed on access to software in the broader scope of participation in the digital society, this week named named new leadership for the first time in nearly a decade since its inception.
With implementation of the World Health Organization strategy on intellectual property and innovation beginning in earnest, international experts this week debated how human rights could be infused into global health strategies - including the possibility of new international agreements on research and development - and whether WHO is up to the task.
Members of a global treaty on plant genetic resources this month announced 11 new projects on biodiversity conservation in research institutions, and financed by a benefit-sharing fund whose sustainability is still in doubt. The group separately acted to better protect farmers’ rights at the national level.
LAUSANNE - One should not waste a good crisis, goes the common wisdom - a piece of advice policymakers might use to spur the world closer to a green, knowledge-based economy, said a panel at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Wednesday. The current financial crisis and an awakening recognition of the ecological crisis have presented a unique opportunity for innovation - and particularly green innovation - to take a lead role in driving future economies.
WASHINGTON – Le 9 juin, au cours d’une conférence, la ministre française de la Culture et de la Communication, Christine Albanel, a défini la loi Création et Internet comme étant « à la fois ambitieuse et réaliste ». Selon elle, ceux qui pensent qu’Internet est une zone de non-droit « se trompent d’époque ». À l’occasion de cette conférence, des hypothèses ont également été avancées quant à la législation américaine entourant la réforme des brevets, les droits d’interprétation et d’exécution, et d’autres questions.
As members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) prepare to meet for their annual ministerial meeting in Paris next week, the organisation has issued a report calling for a strategic, innovation-driven response to the economic crisis.
Nearly two billion people lack access to the medical care they need, and in the developing world those who do manage to have access are overwhelmingly paying out-of-pocket, often triggering a fall into poverty. The monopoly-making power of patents to drive the cost of medicines beyond affordability is a significant contributor to this disturbing trend, says a report of the United Nations rapporteur on the right to health presented at last week’s Human Rights Council.