Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has launched an initiative with other agencies aimed at expanding global access to health products such as medicines. But the Fund has had some explaining to do about the initiative, which some say could encompass a plan to allow different prices based on national income levels.
The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) this week announced two new licencing agreements with the private sector joint venture ViiV Healthcare that will increase access to a new antiretroviral in countries hardest hit by HIV.
Mike Palmedo at Infojustice.org writes: "The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) is currently investigating “Indian industrial policies that discriminate against U.S. imports… and the effect those barriers have on the U.S. economy and U.S. jobs.” The investigation was requested by Sen. Hatch, Sen. Baucus, Rep. Camp, and Rep. Levin, and the final report is due to be released in November. Last week it held a series of hearings, where it heard from U.S. business, Indian business, and civil society representatives."
The Quaker UN Office in Geneva has announced two new publications on intellectual property, agriculture, food and biological diversity.
DG Shah writes: Acquisition of brownfield, or existing, pharmaceutical companies may be seen in different perspectives as greenfield, or new, projects are permitted 100% equity via the automatic route. India has sought FDI mainly to bridge the shortfall in investment or to facilitate the flow of know-how and technology. We must first assess the need of the pharma sector and then evaluate whether mere change of ownership would meet its needs.
Participants at a recent conference in South Africa offered insights and some optimism about prospects for local communities to exploit their traditional knowledge to help their economies while at the same time protecting that knowledge.
Just weeks before being abruptly arrested and strip-searched in New York, a now-departed Indian diplomat took on the powerful US business lobby over India’s controversial approach to intellectual property.
The State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) has a new commissioner, Shen Changyu. And the World Intellectual Property Organization wasted no time in meeting with him. China was approved last month to receive a new WIPO office.
An upcoming conference in Mumbai, India will look at patent laws related to the pharmaceutical and biopharma industries regionally and internationally.
CPhI's 3rd Annual Pharma IPR 2014, taking place from 26-28 February, is a targeted conference focusing on patent related matters for pharma and biopharma industry across the globe. It is intended to provide an ideal learning and networking platform where techno-legal experts from patent law firms across the globe share an update on patent regimes, changes in patent laws, and enforceability of patent laws in different regions with the pharma and biopharma companies.
The conference agenda will cover most debated subjects like: inter-partes review; one year after the implementation of the America Invents Act; reverse payments settlements cases; current implementation of the Unitary Patent System in the EU; and formulating strategies to introduce generic products in international markets.
The programme will cover patent laws of over 13 regions including the US, EU, Japan, Mexico, Canada, India, South East Asia, and Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) countries.
Click here to view the region-wise agenda.
Free download for IP-Watch Readers! Click here to view presentations from 2013!
The Berne Declaration, a Swiss non-profit, has released results of investigations that found industry-sponsored offshore clinical drug trials in developing countries involve "multiple ethical violations," a problem increased by the patent-based industry business model.
Developing countries have been under pressure for years to join the global intellectual property system established by developed countries, and they have been doing so gradually. But now the leading emerging economies have taken matters into their own hands and signed an IP cooperation roadmap among themselves that will boost their uptake of IP in a way that is most favourable to them.
The importance of cooperation among developing and least-developed countries in the field of intellectual property is rising, and is a key vector of technology-sharing, according to speakers at a conference on the subject at the World Intellectual Property Organization. Developing countries are strongly in favour of further work in this area, while WIPO will soon launch a dedicated webpage on South-South cooperation.