Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Leading Russian television channels, among which are First Channel, STS, Ren TV, TNT the Comedy, Nostalgia and some others, have filed a class action lawsuit related to intellectual property rights in a New York court against their US repeaters, including Infomir, Panorama TV, Goodzone TV.
The new Anton Mostert Chair of Intellectual Property Law at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, Professor Sadulla Karjiker, has pointed a finger at the country’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for being “unresponsive” to stakeholders offering their input into proposed IP legislation.
The Ukrainian Parliament is currently drafting an amended Customs Code to introduce a number of changes to the country’s intellectual property legislation. Moreover, in mid-March, local lawmakers authorised Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko to ratify the protocol amending the TRIPS agreement which enables increased exports of pharmaceuticals produced under compulsory licences to countries which are not capable of manufacturing them locally.
Today, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) filed a patent opposition against Pfizer’s vaccine for pneumonia in India.
NEW DELHI -- Are patient groups, health activists and manufacturers of low-cost generic drugs always on the same page? Do India’s generic companies think alike? The short answer: not necessarily, though their interests have overlapped on many occasions.
The European Union and Canada have jointly announced the finalisation of the legal review for Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).
The saga of fights between the President of the European Patent Office, Benoît Battistelli, and the trade union SUEPO goes on with a recent decision to fire two and degrade one member of the trade union. Demonstrations at both the Netherlands and the Munich sites of the EPO continue, and further divisions between the president and the EPO Administrative Council are being reported. Battistelli spoke with Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch in January about his view of the fight and about what else he has on his plate as he had decided to continue for one more term in office.
The United States has spent over a decade trying to rein in so-called “patent trolls.” Nevertheless, a recent study suggests that patent trolls are a bigger problem than ever.
The United States worked hard over the last five years to reduce patent infringement suits. Congress enacted patent reform, the courts handed down important anti-patentee rulings, and the US Patent and Trademark Office began a campaign of energetically rejecting patents and patent claims. Despite all this, from 2014 to 2015, new patent infringement suits increased 18 percent and the number of defendants sued for patent infringement increased 21 percent. What went wrong?
The well-worn phrase “no man is an island” may reflect a fundamental truth about the human condition, but it also provides wisdom into how to protect your company against patent trolls, writes Tim Wilson.
Just days before the restart of negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) on 22 February in Brussels, a large coalition of non-governmental organisations led by the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) published a critical report on new proposals for the highly debated investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms. The activists called the Investment Court System (ICS) prepared by EU Commissioner Malmstroem as an alternative a mere “ISDS zombie.”
The European Patent Office on 20 January revoked a patent held by Monsanto on virus-resistant melons for technical reasons, much to the glee of opponents of patents on conventional plants. [updated]