Original news and analysis on international IP policy
If governments have the obligation to help keep their citizens healthy, many of them are struggling to strengthen their health systems. A variety of hurdles is in the way, and lack of access to medicines is one of them, as underlined by the World Health Organization director general in her address to the United Nations Human Rights Council yesterday.
Frederick M. Abbott writes: The US Supreme Court has created a new competitive landscape with its decision adopting international exhaustion of patents. For the pharmaceutical sector, we can expect an initial period of uncertainty as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) assesses the regulatory framework affected by the decision and as competing stakeholders advance their interests. In an earlier Inside Views contribution, I addressed the principal impact of the decision on the US pharmaceuticals market: downward pricing pressure.[1] This follow-on addresses some of the regulatory and access issues affected by the decision, observing that parallel trade in pharmaceutical products is a long-standing practice, that recently introduced US legislative proposals may shape the regulatory framework in the United States, and concluding with ways that access programs in favor of developing countries are protected.
On 30 May, the US Supreme Court handed down yet another in a long series of rulings that cut back on the rights of patent owners. This time, the high court made it far more difficult for patentees to impose post-sale restrictions on the use or resale of their patented goods. The ruling should boost parallel imports into the US, increase competition throughout the American economy, lower prices for US consumers, and hurt the bottom line of many companies.
For artificial intelligence enthusiasts, the future is bright. Soon intelligent machines will help humankind solve most problems, and according to one speaker at an artificial intelligence summit in Geneva this week, humans will be outsmarted by robots in the foreseeable future, in an artificial intelligence bliss. For others, artificial intelligence is far from delivering a fully positive outcome, and for several United Nations representatives, such as the World Health Organization, the world should not be entrusted to robots just yet.
It is “amazing” what can be done via the internet and the Internet of Things is a “game changer,” a speaker said during the Internet of Things Week currently taking place in Geneva. Ninety percent of the data in the world has been created in the last two years. And the speed of data creation is still increasing, another speaker said.
It has become a tradition at the World Trade Organization committee on intellectual property to have an agenda item on intellectual property and innovation, and next week's meeting is no exception. More noticeable on the agenda of the committee next week is an item on intellectual property and the public interest that addresses compulsory licensing.
The opinions of the World Health Organization member states on the just-completed election process for a WHO director general showed divisions, according to statements at last week’s meeting of the WHO Executive Board.
The World Health Organization's new list of essential medicines, those which should be available to everyone, anywhere, was issued today. To answer the rising concern about antimicrobial resistance, the antibiotics on the list have been divided in three groups, the last of which are to be used as a last resort. The list includes the first combination therapy to treat all six types of hepatitis C. However, no second line treatment for breast cancer has been added this year.
CAPE TOWN--The highest decision-making body of government has finally considered the much-anticipated draft intellectual property policy of South Africa.
The agreement found last year after months of intense discussion to avert the possibility of undue influence by outside actors at the World Health Organization is yet to be fully implemented. The World Health Assembly last week looked at progress and the process by which the WHO can temporarily welcome on its staff individuals from the private sector, civil society, philanthropic foundations, and academic institutions. Some countries questioned principles in this process but were told by the WHO that their comments would merely be recorded.
The Global Debate on Intellectual Property, Trade and Development: Past, Present and Future
A Conference in Honour of Pedro Roffe
An unusual meeting is taking place at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week, bringing together entrepreneurs in water and sanitation technology and business models with prospective investors, including clean-tech venture capitalists, private equity and corporate investors.