Original news and analysis on international IP policy
By Liza Porteus Viana for Intellectual Property Watch WASHINGTON, DC – There is a growing backlash against intellectual property rights and international rules aimed at protecting innovation and ideas in certain parts of the globe, several pharmaceutical and other innovator…
By Kaitlin Mara
As more companies embrace environmental sustainability as an essential part of business strategy, policymakers have been questioning what they can do to create a policy environment conducive to green business. Intellectual Property Watch spoke to several green business professionals to get their view on the IP policy environments in which they work.
By Liza Porteus Viana for Intellectual Property Watch The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has not adequately explained to the world the need for more generic top-level domains (gTLDs – such as .com), industry representatives said last…
By Liza Porteus Viana for Intellectual Property Watch
BOSTON - More companies have joined a global effort to improve the environment by pledging "green" patents for use in the public domain. Meanwhile, a US IP law group passed a resolution on IP and public health, including provisions urging restriction of compulsory licences.
A top consumer advocate has joined the Microsoft Corporation to lobby for its interests in Brussels. Plus, changes at the top for a Washington IP industry association, and Japan's patent office.
By Kaitlin Mara A new think-tank in Geneva has found a unique way to bring the collective power of leading developing country thinkers and researchers to bear on Geneva policy-making, while allowing those thinkers to remain current by staying within…
By Kaitlin Mara Some intellectual property rights holders and their representative governments are looking with concern at the drive to hold discussions on draft modalities for IP issues in this week’s World Trade Organization mini-ministerial. Letters sent early this week…
By Liza Porteus Viana for Intellectual Property Watch
When Biotechnology Industry Organization CEO Jim Greenwood meets with members of the United States Congress to talk to them about follow-on biologics, he brings a graphic model of an aspirin and a DVD showing the complex molecules of a biologic drug. He uses these visuals to help explain the differences between traditional chemical drugs and newer, cutting-edge biological ones being used in many breakthrough therapies for cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS, and other diseases.
The differences between traditional chemical drugs and biological ones is the crux of the debate going on in the United States as Congress and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) try to create a regulatory pathway that gives consumers greater access to cheaper, generic biological drugs, but still spurs innovation and protects innovator patent claims.
"When the legislation was introduced at the beginning of this Congress, most pundits expected that we'd oppose it," said Greenwood, a former House representative from Pennsylvania, told Intellectual Property Watch. "But that was a mistake the pharmaceutical industry made in the '80s - trying to resist the notion you could safely make generics …our view at BIO is that we need to follow the science, and science says you can make follow-on biologics that can be safe and can save the consumer money and therefore we support it."
By David Cronin for Intellectual Property Watch BRUSSELS – The ‘fragmented’ nature of Europe’s patent application system is harming small firms, a Brussels event has been told amid new efforts to harmonise it. Ever since the early 1970s, the European…
General Electric’s Ecomagination is an initiative launched in 2005 as a gathering/focal point for extant green technology as well as new research and development into clean technology. Ecomagination’s products include technologies for cleaner energy, notably wind turbines for collecting wind…
By Liza Porteus Viana for Intellectual Property Watch
NEW YORK - The groundwork has been laid at the United Nations by governments, non-governmental organisations, and intellectual property and finance experts on how to use intellectual property assets to encourage credit around the globe while not interfering with intellectual property laws.
par Liza Porteus Viana pour Intellectual Property Watch Bien qu’en apparence, la réforme des brevets soit entrée dans une impasse au Congrès américain, l’administration Bush intensifie ses efforts pour qu’un projet de loi soit achevé au cours de la période…