Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The final draft of India’s national intellectual property policy has been circulated for inter-ministerial consultation and will be sent to the Cabinet for approval after receiving comments, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said this week. Meanwhile, today public health groups in India announced that revocation of a Roche pharmaceutical patent has been upheld under Indian law.
An international coalition of intellectual property rights defenders wrote a letter to World Intellectual Property Organization Director General Francis Gurry yesterday providing suggested international guidelines to protect IP rights.
The United Kingdom government is calling for evidence on a proposal to provide designers with an option to mark their products with a web link instead of stamping the product or attaching a label with registered design numbers to provide public notice of registered design rights.
A new developing country policy brief warns against use of the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, arguing that it has a low capacity to adapt to exceptional circumstances that can afflict developing countries.
For nearly two decades, the European Union has pondered the completion of a unitary patent system (UP) and a Unitary Patent Court (UPC). But even after the European Court of Justice has ruled the UP/UPC agreement to be constitutional, users, including some big ones, remain cautious.
Despite progress in recent years to boost local pharmaceutical production in developing countries, policy coherence across the countries is lacking, according to an official at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Inter partes review (“IPR”) proceedings were originally intended to allow defendants in patent infringement lawsuits to invalidate questionable patents cheaply and quickly. But these proceedings increasingly are being used by parties that are not defendants in active litigation matters at all, write Rich Hung and Alex Hadduck.
A conference on jurisdiction and dispute resolution in the age of the internet raised topical issues of concern to internet-based public policy, such as the notion of how jurisdiction and internet governance is a question of power, and an update on the International Law Association guidelines project. In addition, a debate arose as to the state of the patent system.
In 1976, Yambuku village school headmaster Mabalo Lokela felt sick when he returned from a trip to northern Zaire near the Central African Republic border. He had a high fever, diarrhea, and bleeding. Because he was initially believed to have malaria, Lokela was given quinine, but his symptoms got worse and he soon died. Shortly afterwards, those who had been in contact with Lokela also died. ... Almost four decades later, there is still no cure for Ebola, despite the fact that drug development on average takes about a third of this time frame, write William Fisher and Quentin Palfrey.
The Russian government is crafting a new strategy in the field of intellectual property, which should strengthen the protection of IP rights in Russia and create conditions for the acceleration of the domestic research activities in the country, according to Dmitry Livanov of Russia’s Ministry of Science and Education.
KAMPALA, UGANDA -- Member states of African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) have adopted a protocol for the protection of new varieties of plants. The measure is aimed at modernising African agricultural practices, but some say it comes at the expense of age-old traditional farming practices, such as saving and re-using seed.
The European Parliament during its last plenary meeting before the summer break today adopted a non-legislative report on copyright reform prepared by Pirate Party Member Julia Reda. The report calls for an adaptation of the EU 2001 Copyright Directive to the digital market.