Category Venues

UN Rapporteur On Food Offers Long-Term Answer To Food Crisis: Agroecology

The annual report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, to the sixteenth session of the UN Human Rights Council yesterday is unequivocal. There must be a global agricultural shift toward more productive, environmentally friendly, sustainable modes of production, using natural resources to remediate world hunger, away from industrialised agriculture. In short, the world needs a shift to agroecology.

Canada Considers Amendment To Compulsory Licensing Regime For Medicines Access

The Canadian Parliament is on the verge of amending the nation’s patent regime to make it easier for generic drug companies to provide low-cost HIV medications for developing countries.

Tavengwa Runyowa
March 8, 2011

Panel: Help Needed With IP Implications Of Nagoya Protocol On Genetic Resources

The new international agreement on access and benefit-sharing of genetic resources has many IP implications, according to panellists at an event last week. And at least one United Nations agency is launching an effort to help countries with those IP implications.

Catherine Saez
March 7, 2011

Governments, ICANN Still Deep In Negotiations Over New Internet Domains

BRUSSELS - In an arm-wrestling exercise, governments and the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) last week tried to reach common ground on intellectual property rights protection and governments' ability to intervene with applications for new top-level domains that they see as “sensitive” or “vulnerable” like .nazi, .gay or .bank.

Monika Ermert
March 7, 2011
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US Panel Puts Google, Facebook, Communications Platforms On Human Rights Frontline

Recent events in the Arab region have brought the issue of access to the internet and social platforms sharply into the spotlight as governments have tried to block or limit internet access and cut millions of people from communication. A United States-hosted panel discussion in Geneva yesterday brought together representatives of Google, Facebook, and Access, a civil society group defending digital freedom.

Catherine Saez
March 5, 2011

In Brazil And The IP World, It’s Tropicalization Time!

Benny Spiewak writes: There used to be a time when Brazil meant almost exclusively Carnival, Samba and Soccer. Well, those days are over and there is an undeniable message that will echo through the knowledge-based, creative, innovative world: Wake-Up, World, It’s Tropicalization Time!

WIPO Draft Treaty Text On Genetic Resources Joins Folklore, Traditional Knowledge

Country experts this week took up the challenge of doing the groundwork for negotiations towards a treaty on the protection of genetic resources at the World Intellectual Property Organization. Breaking uncharacteristically early on the final day today, the experts’ work delivered a set of options reflecting all points of views for negotiators to work from.

Catherine Saez
March 4, 2011

Draft WIPO Instrument On Genetic Resources Shows Lists Of Options

A new draft document was issued yesterday by a drafting group of experts at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The drafting group was in charge of cleaning up a text with aspirations to become a draft international instrument on the protection of genetic resources, and added a number of options for a possible treaty.

WTO Talks On Geographical Indications Unable To Achieve Lift-Off

World Trade Organization members on Thursday combed through a composite text displaying the different views on a mandated multilateral system of notification and registration of geographical indications on wines and spirits. The composite text was developed last week as the result of several informal meetings. Countries now have clarified their inputs to the document and tried to define what next steps should be taken to refine it, but discussions were difficult, according to participants.

WHO Working Group Gives Guidelines To Fight Bad Medicines; IMPACT In Exile

After three days of intense negotiations on the role of the World Health Organization in the fight against low standard or falsified medicines, delegates provided recommendations for the UN agency. A subject of dissent was the relationship between the WHO and its taskforce against counterfeit medicines, with some countries calling for a suspension of the taskforce’s work, though in the end no consensus was found.

Patentable Subject Matter, IP Waiver For Health Discussed At WTO

Patentable subject matter was discussed this week at the World Trade Organization with entrenched positions, according to sources, and the momentum started in October on ways to improve a public health exception within the WTO Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, appeared to have lost some steam.

Group Discussion Deepens Over WHO Role In Stopping Poor Quality Medicines

The role of the World Health Organization in the safety, quality and efficacy of medical products is under scrutiny this week by member states and stakeholders. In particular, the focus is on the WHO’s role in the prevention and control of medical products of compromised quality, the organisation’s relationship with the international taskforce against counterfeit products, and the taskforce’s alleged focus on the protection of intellectual property rights rather than on public health issues. In several documents, the WHO tries to explain this fragile role.

Catherine Saez
March 1, 2011