Original news and analysis on international IP policy
NAIROBI, Kenya -- After making a dramatic entry into the African market late last year that was marked by as much drama as elsewhere in the world, global taxi hailing service Uber is facing tough times in the Kenyan market, thanks to a number of innovative tech start-ups that are giving the company a run for its money.
NAIROBI, Kenya (IP-Watch) – Intellectual property rights related to trade and development will continue to be part of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)’s programme work, according to an agreement on the organisation’s four-year mandate reached at the agency’s 14th session in Nairobi.
NAIROBI, Kenya (IP-Watch) -- A global database on non-tariff measures (NTMs) has been launched here at the 14th United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD 14). Also this week the World Investment Forum kicked off, the first such event since agreement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
A new publication analysing the relationship between intellectual property and access to science explores ways countries have developed to counter the potential barriers created by IP rights, and says patenting by universities is counterproductive.
NAIROBI, Kenya (IP-Watch) – The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 14th Session opened here yesterday, with leaders calling for deeper and broader cooperation between trade and development.
Days before a major meeting of the governing body of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), over 100 non-governmental organisations worldwide are calling for the organisation to maintain its development role and not help implement international and regional trade rules.
With the aim of strengthening regional cooperation in intellectual property, the four member states of the Visegrad Group, which comprises Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, launched the Visegrad Patent Institute (VPI) on 1 July. Applicants will be allowed to communicate with the institutions in their respective mother tongues, and fees for Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications will be reduced by as much as 40 percent, according to Poland’s Patent Office (UPRP).
Constraints on financing, restrictions on services and not so much access to technology emerged as one of the biggest challenges in the innovation, deployment and diffusion of clean energy technologies during an unusual session last week in Geneva which brought together climate scientists and trade policy wonks. Technologists and chemical engineers also came together to discuss how unlocking trade could help clean technologies in the context of the implementation of the Paris agreement on climate change.
This week in the World Intellectual Property Organization patent law committee, the African Group submitted an updated proposal for a work programme on patents and health that would help developing countries tailor patent law to their circumstances.
A top Ecuadoran official said today at the United Nations in Geneva that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s health is deteriorating after four years confined in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, while the United Kingdom and Sweden are ignoring the findings of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention which called for Assange’s release. The Ecuadoran Minister of Foreign Affairs also said Ecuador will carry on issuing compulsory licences for medicines as it sees fit, underlining the increasing role of intellectual property and the greater privatisation of knowledge.
The African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) last week hosted a meeting of experts in Harare, Zimbabwe, to review the Draft Regulations for the Implementation of the Arusha Protocol for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants.
The intergovernmental South Centre has raised the level of its activity on issues of relevance to the intellectual property community in recent weeks.