Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The Dominican Republic has followed Honduras in appealing a decision by a World Trade Organization dispute settlement panel that found Australia's tobacco plain packaging law to be allowable under WTO rules. Cuba and Indonesia also had cases against Australia but so far have not appealed.
NEW YORK – Negotiators for a United Nations declaration on tuberculosis, meeting intensively in New York this week, may have reached agreement today on a key sticking point related to intellectual property, innovation and access to new medicines, according to sources. An agreement, if accepted by other delegations, could allow the text to proceed to the high-profile High-Level Meeting scheduled to take place at the UN General Assembly next month.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is seeking comments on its draft strategic plan for the years 2018-2022. The draft plan covers a range of goals, including optimizing patent and trademark quality and timeliness, and providing "domestic and global leadership to improve intellectual property policy, enforcement, and protection worldwide."
In wearable technology, product development converges with information and communication technology, presenting new opportunities for patents, as well as new risks, according to legal experts.
By Vinayak Bhardwaj - Not a day passes in America without news of a drug company raising prices on prescription drugs. Americans pay two to six times more for prescription drugs than those living in other developed countries, who earn the same income.
The International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) has released a new report calling for a redesign of global copyright norms to preserve the public interest in the face of emerging technologies.
Patients around the world, in developing and developed countries, are encountering barriers to access to affordable medical products, in part due to patents and resulting high prices. This is occurring despite longstanding protections built into international trade rules to allow smaller economies to act on behalf of their people and make such medical products available regardless of patents. These protections are often referred to as flexibilities in the 1994 World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The prevailing view is that knowledge, understanding and use of them remains limited among policymakers and many potential beneficiaries, even as patent-strong nations and their industries work to narrow the reach and ability to use these flexibilities. In the face of this, global civil society in recent years have increasingly begun work to change the direction of this trend, with the ultimate goal of helping people everywhere - but particularly poor populations - obtain drugs they need that exist but are out of their reach. Now, the series of Intellectual Property Watch stories on this subject sponsored by Make Medicines Affordable have been translated into five languages.
In an appeal of a recent World Trade Organization dispute panel ruling, Honduras detailed a list of alternate interpretations of the decision to uphold Australia’s tobacco plain packaging measures. Honduras called on the WTO Appellate Body to “reverse the Panel’s findings and conclusions,” claiming that the ruling was “not the result of an objective assessment of the matter.”
Patent litigation can drain capital during the crucial first few months of launching new technology, a particular problem in the capital-intensive hardware space. Companies need to find creative ways to go after patent thieves without stifling growth or ceding market share, writes Michael A. Nicolas.
Pharmaceutical companies have created an “untenable” situation by engaging in exploitative patenting practices to extend monopolies, increasing drug prices and delaying competition from more affordable generics, according to a new NGO report analysing drug prices.
The UN Convention on Biological Diversity advisory bodies met last month to consider issues in preparation of the high-level Conference of the Parties later this year in Egypt. Among the topics were how to deal with genetic resources DNA information under the CBD protocol on access and benefit-sharing (Nagoya Protocol). Another was concerns met by countries implementing the protocol, in particular developing countries, and the need for capacity building.
An alleged thief caught stealing trade secrets from General Electric in New York hid the electronic files inside an innocent-looking digital picture of a sunset, according to the United States Department of Justice.