Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Political and economic shifts have modified the post-war world order, and global health governance has to adapt to this new environment, speakers said at an academic event in Geneva this week. Among the changes: with the decline of United States funding for global health, new actors such as China and India could take leadership roles, they said.
The Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) this week launched a campaign to ask the University of California to drop its pursuit of a patent on the prostrate cancer drug Xtandi in India in order to make it affordable for patients. Xtandi sells at "exorbitant" rates in the United States, they said, a seeming violation of the licensing guidelines of the publicly funded University of California system which guarantees an "appropriate" return on taxpayer investments.
A coalition of companies holding patents in Europe has welcomed conclusions released this week by the Council of the European Union on tougher enforcement of intellectual property rights. But the group raised concern that the conclusions failed to recognise the steady rise in the EU of patent-assertion entities, or patent trolls.
Countries highly dependent on intellectual property rights do little to educate people not working in the IP field about the importance of such rights, an industry-backed study has found.
There is little evidence that more innovative or therapeutically valuable pharmaceutical products are rewarded, or that patents are the best way to do so, Economics Professor Margaret Kyle of the Centre d’économie industrielle of Mines ParisTech says in an upcoming study for the Review of Industrial Organization.
NEW YORK -- A major event on innovation and access to health technologies took place at the United Nations in New York last week, in which UN member states were briefed on ideas and efforts to promote these issues at the forefront of global health policy.
Nobel Prize winner Sir John Sulston passed away on 6 March at the age of 75, and was widely remembered in the press and scientific circles, celebrating his research, his wisdom, and his leadership of the landmark Human Genome Project. Intellectual Property Watch recalls his visionary warning and advice a decade ago about the intellectual property system, investment, and science that is still valuable today.
Variety reports: The [US] Copyright Royalty Board has ruled to increase songwriter rates for interactive streaming by nearly 50% over the next five years, in a ruling issued early Saturday. Equally important, the CRB simplified and strengthened the manner in which songwriters are paid mechanical royalties, modifying terms in a way that offers a foothold in the free-market.
Access to hepatitis C treatments is increasing, so are therapeutic options, but most of those living with the disease are not diagnosed and thus remain untreated, the World Health Organization found in a new report. Upper-middle income and high-income countries continue to pay high prices, impeding equitable access, and those countries which have been most successful in increasing access have mobilised a strong government response, the report found.
The protection of inventions is a cornerstone to encourage innovation as engine of economic growth. As one of the world‘s leading centres for innovation, the level of scientific and technological performance in Germany is very high, thanks to an excellent research landscape and a good technological and economic basis. But the global innovation competition is intensifying, and new competitors are seeking to enter international markets. However, Germany is falling short of its potential when it comes to leveraging technology to create new products, writes Michael Kahnert.
KAMPALA, Uganda -- In what is seen as a significant achievement in the making of history of intellectual property law, the Government of Zimbabwe has instituted and operationalised an Intellectual Property Tribunal, with the mandate to speedily preside over all IP matters, disputes, infringements, passing off and other related issues. The Tribunal recently heard its first case. [A reminder to readers: All IP-Watch stories are totally free for least-developed countries and almost all developing countries. Just sign up for a password under Subscribe.]
US Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information David Redl today weighed in on the debate over changes to the storage and public display of personal information of domain name registrants at the meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Redl urged negotiators to keep the so-called Whois database, described by some as a public phone book for the owners of domain names, as open as possible while implementing the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union.