Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Despite increased economic growth over the past decade, Africa will not reach some of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets set forth in 2000 by the United Nations, including halving poverty by 2015, according to a UN report released yesterday.
Global exports of creative goods and services reached a record US$ 624 billion in 2011, according to the latest figures from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Such creative goods include arts and crafts, books, graphic and interior design works, fashion, films, music, new media, printed and visual media, as well as audiovisuals.
A new report released today by the International Chamber of Commerce Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP) calls for increased regulation in free trade zones to stop the facilitation of counterfeiting and piracy in these areas.
A recent report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the European Patent Office (EPO) looks at the role of the patent system in clean energy technology (CET) transfers in Africa. One of the highlights of the report is that less than 1 percent of identified CET-related patent applications have been filed in Africa, despite there being a high level of potential in renewable energy sources.
The 2013 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum opened today to address the future of information and communication technologies (ICT). This meeting of the WSIS Forum marks ten years since the first phase of the summit was held in Geneva in 2003.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has released a new report focused on the issue of green economies and international trade. The report examines six sectors – agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture, forestry, manufacturing, renewable energy and tourism – that are of particular interest to developing countries.
A panel of experts gathered at the Graduate Institute in Geneva last week discussed how to secure collective action to provide global public goods through research and development (R&D) for the particular public health needs of low and middle income countries.
The Nagoya Protocol, adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity, provides a set of rules to prevent misappropriation of genetic resources. As such, it crosses paths with the international intellectual property system. This interface is the subject of a handbook to be published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
The interactions between intellectual property and international rules of global access and benefit sharing were explored recently as an expert group meeting was convened by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to explore several areas where those interactions occur.
Istanbul - The unsuspecting consumer must above all be protected against counterfeit products, speakers said today at meeting of private sector, intergovernmental and governmental representatives. But increasingly organised crime is dealing the products, and anti-counterfeiting forces need to be as innovative as possible to defeat it. Fortunately, the private sector is ready to step up to help cash-strapped governments, and it is taking the “respect for IP” message to … children.
During the recent Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) Colloquium 2013, participants highlighted the value of research and development in supporting public health and the importance of building self-reliance for countries through government investment, according to organisers. Some of the themes discussed during the event will be included in a report on public health policy, which will be published in The Lancet later this year.
A draft protocol for the protection of new varieties of plants proposed by an inter-governmental African regional economic community is provoking the ire of civil society concerned about the potential impact of the protocol on small farmers, and the lack of consultation of farmers.