Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Some 300 global nongovernmental organisations have signed a letter voicing concerns about the agenda of the upcoming World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in December. In particular, they target the alleged push by some countries for a new agenda on digital trade, which they describe as “wrong.”
The UN World Health Organization today announced it has established a new high-level global commission on noncommunicable diseases, to be chaired by former WHO director general candidate Sania Nishtar of Pakistan.
General assumptions saying that intellectual property protection leads to development through the promotion of innovation are not supported by academic research, a well-known professor said last week at the World Intellectual Property Organization. Only countries at a certain level of development can truly benefit from IP protection, he said.
On 18 August 2017, the Trump administration invoked Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to launch an investigation into alleged Chinese violations of intellectual property rights (IPR). In response, China stated that the United States ‘disregards the rules of the WTO’ and that it will ‘take all proper measures to safeguard its legitimate rights’. Alongside investigations into steel and aluminium imports, the new Section 301 case holds the potential to escalate US–China trade tensions, write Zhiyao (Lucy) Lu and Gary Clyde Hufbauer.
NEW YORK -- Assuring the quality of medicines all the way to the consumer is a key component of the global antimicrobial resistance action plan now beginning to be implemented around the world, a panel of experts said during the recent United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The World Intellectual Property Organization has a new head of Global Health, and the Global Challenges Division is hunting for its next director.
The Universities Allied for Essential medicines (UAEM) evaluated 15 Canadian research-intensive universities on their contributions to biomedical research on neglected health needs, access to medicines, and education concerning access and innovation issues. The results show that for a number of those universities, this contribution is sub-optimal.
Bugs in the European Union copyright reform were discussed during the 6th edition of the annual Warsaw CopyCamp held last week. Liability of platforms and special intellectual property rights on snippets were the poster child for bad legislation. But the activists, academics and internet companies also expressed concerns over a general backlash on internet openness and internet freedom.
“There are shameful access disparities around the world” to life-saving medicines, Harvard University Global Access in Action project Co-Director Quentin Palfrey said at a 26 September Center for Strategic and International Studies event in Washington, DC. And while some of the challenges to fuller access involve pricing, getting medicines to poorer countries or populations means overcoming the obstacles of insufficient research and development (R&D) incentives, access barriers and polarised politics, he said.
The topic of access to medicines has gained momentum in recent years as high prices of new medicines affect developing countries and developed countries. The role of competition legislation in preventing market abuses and monopoly situations has been pointed to as a possible lever to facilitate access to generic medicines and balance the potential negative effects of intellectual property protection.
As protectionism tempts some, the International Chamber of Commerce Brazil is launching an initiative to bring new technologies to the rescue of international trade. The new digital age holds promise and is inevitable, but requires solid policymaking and improvement in such areas as education and broadband coverage to deliver on its possibilities, panellists at the World Trade Organization Public Forum said today.
At a time when international trade might be perceived as creating more harm than good, the World Trade Organization is proposing to go “behind the headlines” and beyond the rhetoric, as the theme of its yearly public forum of stakeholder discussions, which opened today.