Original news and analysis on international IP policy
[Updated] The European Patent Office (EPO) on 13 September ruled in favour of pharmaceutical company Gilead and maintained the company's patent on hepatitis C drug sofosbuvir. The patent, however, is maintained in an amended form. Civil society involved in the case expressed dismay over the outcome and its potential effect on European drug prices.
European Union lawmakers today approved by a 438-226 margin a measure updating EU copyright law and voted to begin negotiations with the European Commission (EC) and Council. The vote followed parliamentary rejection in June of plans to launch an immediate “trilogue” with the EC and Council based on text as approved by the lead Legal Affairs Committee (JURI), instead sending the measure for full debate at the September plenary held today.
The European Patent Office is expected to hold oral proceedings later this week on a challenge filed against a Gilead patent on hepatitis C treatment. Invalidation of the patent would open the way to competition and lower prices, according to civil society groups which initiated the challenge. But according to an EPO source, the company is seeking at most an amendment to the patent.
Over two years after a group of World Intellectual Property Organization members adopted a treaty on the protection of geographical indications, the European Commission has recommended that the European Union join the treaty. The EU was one of the major proponents of the treaty. Separately, a geographical indications industry group is urging EU attention to be placed on the need for legal certainty after the exit of the United Kingdom from the EU.
The newly established Dutch Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation has announced its first action to address unreasonably high medicines prices in the Netherlands. The Foundation will request the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets to look into the price hike for the medicine chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA) by the company Leadiant Biosciences Ltd (formerly Sigma-Tau). CDCA is used for the treatment of children and adults with cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis (CTX), a rare genetic metabolic disease that affects around 60 people in the Netherlands.
Antonio Campinos, whose term as president of the European Patent Office began on 1 July, has said he wants to focus on the effectiveness of the organisation, greater global cooperation and “staff engagement.”
European countries led by Switzerland are experiencing an "innovation renaissance," this year's Global Innovation Index shows, while the scale of China’s rise in the index is “quite astonishing,” Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, senior economic officer at the World Intellectual Property Organization, says in a short video interview with Intellectual Property Watch.
A new trademark regulation entered into force in Albania on June 7, 2018, clarifying a range of issues raised by the changes to the Albanian Industrial Property Law in force as of March 24, 2017. Some of the most significant changes and clarifications concern the following:
The European Parliament today opposed plans to launch immediate “trilogue” negotiations with the Council and European Commission on copyright reform legislation, instead sending the controversial measure to full debate at the next plenary session of Parliament.
The European Parliament votes tomorrow on whether to allow negotiations with the Council to begin on controversial copyright reform legislation. The proposed updated rules have sparked intense lobbying by supporters and foes alike, including, one lawmaker said at a press briefing today, death threats.