Original news and analysis on international IP policy
In Intellectual Property: A Very Short Introduction, by Siva Vaidhyanathan, readers are introduced to the basics of intellectual property, framed in a way that illustrates how intellectual property both shapes and is shaped by larger economic, political and social contexts.
Minister Celso Amorim of Brazil has had a significant impact on the state of global negotiations in his professional lifetime, including on global intellectual property rights.
In December, the United States Congress passed a bill with a monumental goal: engaging the private sector to work with each other, and with the government, to develop new treatments for cancer. The mechanics of cancer research, however, may require fundamental changes to our patent system if the initiative is to be successful. Intellectual Property Watch recently sat down with Jacob Sherkow, associate professor of law and affiliated faculty at the Innovation Center for Law and Technology at New York University Law School, to discuss challenges to overcome to get the Moonshot off the ground.
With rumours swirling that European Patent Office President Benoît Battistelli is seeking another term in office, disgruntled staff members called another demonstration today to try to push the office's governing body, which is meeting on 15-16 March, to find a successor. [Further update on meeting outcome now added]
German Justice Minister Heiko Maas today presented draft legislation to whack social media providers for what the minister described as reluctance to take down hate speech and fake news.
A letter made public only by a United States Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request confirms that Michelle Lee remains the director of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), ending a mystery that has been curiously kept secret since President Trump took office over 50 days ago.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - The five-metre tall 3D printer dwarfs four engineers in the renewable energy laboratory at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, the biggest tertiary institution in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.
It is still a long way to a new generation of "open scientists", German open data researcher Christian Heise found out in his just-published PhD thesis. Heise not only investigated drivers and barriers for what he expects to be an evolution from open access to open science by theory and a survey of over 1100 scientists. He tried the concept open science the hard way, opening up the writing of his thesis paper on the net.
Under Donald Trump, the United States has adopted new, protectionist policies. “America first,” the President has repeatedly and loudly declared. It appears, however, that the US Supreme Court didn’t get the memo. The Court, in a recent patent law case, sided with foreign companies and consumers, at the expense of US patent owners. The unanimous ruling protects international supply chains instead of domestic US manufacturing.
The Polish Ministry of Health has commenced consultations on an amendment to the act on reimbursements for drugs, foods intended for particular nutritional uses and medical devices. This bill envisions an entirely new system of refunds (full and partial), fixed maximum prices and fixed maximum margins for medical devices based partly on HTA, similar to the system currently in place for pharmaceuticals. The current wording leads one to believe that gradually all groups of medical devices could be introduced into this system. If the amendment is passed in the current shape, it has the potential to transform the medical devices market in Poland.
European Commission plans to modernise copyright rules have run into opposition in European Parliament committees, with lawmakers particularly pushing back against the proposal for a publishers' right to licence snippets of news content.
A recent workshop held on the doorstep of policymakers in the United States drew speakers from academic and activist circles to examine the mechanisms in US law which could help lead to lower prescription drug prices.