Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The European Union Unified Patent Court agreement has not yet been fully ratified but plans are on track to ensure that the judges who staff it are of the highest quality, speakers said at today’s opening ceremony for the judicial training centre in Budapest, Hungary. Future UPC users still have some concerns about the new system, but are giving it a generally good reception, the chairman of the UPC Preparatory Committee said.
KAMPALA - In the western terrains of Uganda, in a refugee camp, Dr. Moses Kizza Musaazi invented and is running a simple but ingenious scheme. Making environmentally friendly sanitary pads out of papyrus reeds. The pads, MakaPads sanitary pads, are the only trademarked biodegradable sanitary pads made in Africa. Dr. Musaazi developed the idea and technique while looking for a way to help school-going girls.
A recent book by a UK journalist and lecturer illustrates that recent reforms in global public health policy have ignored public health needs in favour of market-based ideologies.
A United States government agency later this month will hold the first meeting of a multistakeholder forum on improving the operation of the widespread notice and takedown system for removing infringing content from the internet.
Among the Ferraris, Maseratis and Lamborghinis in Geneva this week, high-level representatives of the auto industry, the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) discussed issues of safety, data sharing and standardisation.
Patent quality is top priority for the European Patent Office, which “wants to be the best in the world,” President Benoît Battistelli said in a 5 March interview. The office's latest annual report shows that patent filings are at an all-time high, and that Europe is an innovation hub. The office's push for excellence, however, has sparked some staff resistance, Battistelli said.
Raising awareness on the value of intellectual property and preventive actions to fight counterfeiting particularly among younger users was among the strategies presented by speakers at the World Intellectual Property Organization committee on enforcement of IP rights this week.
A growing number of countries are signing the new World Intellectual Property Organization treaty on copyright exceptions aimed at boosting access to special format books for visually impaired persons. Parallel to the treaty and pre-dating it, a WIPO-led initiative of interested stakeholders is continuing its efforts to also boost access to such works, including through licence agreements.
An article published in the March 2014 issue of the World Health Organisation Bulletin discusses the evolving issue of access to medicines in Africa.
World Trade Organization members at the WTO intellectual property committee this week held fast to positions on longstanding issues, but engaged in discussions on issues such as innovation in relation to universities, and so-called “non-violation complaints” against countries that may cause harm to another country but don’t violate a WTO rule. Also discussed was the ongoing dispute over plain packaging requirements for tobacco products.
Intellectual property has a strong effect on the practice of science, leading to a shift in research attention for the benefit of the rich, while impeding access to essential goods for the disadvantaged, according to a recent book.
It began last May, when a tiny state in the United States launched a novel legal attack against a notorious patent troll. Other states and the federal government soon followed, all asserting that the troll’s efforts to licence its patents violated consumer protection laws. At first, this new legal strategy produced some significant victories. Many experts and government officials embraced consumer protection law as an important new tool against patent trolls. But a recent court ruling has cast doubt on the future of this once-promising strategy.