Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Substantive progress eluded the negotiators of a draft protocol on biodiversity access and benefit sharing last week in Montreal, according to participating sources. The third attempt at finding consensus on key aspects of the text was unsuccessful and negotiations will carry on at the major United Nations meeting on biodiversity next month in Japan.
The multilateral system with its different agencies dealing with specific areas is sometimes seen as incoherent in global negotiations and norm-setting as there are overlaps in competency, definition and scope, according to speakers at a side event to the recent World Trade Organization Public Forum.
The global economic crisis led to a significant drop in patent and trademarks filings in 2008 and particularly in 2009 but there are signs of recovery, according to the World Intellectual Property Indicators 2010 report released today. China is still showing vigorous growth and demand in intellectual property protection.
Copyright and patent laws "are often misused" for reasons that have "more to do with limiting competition and preventing consumers from making innovative uses of their products" than they do with stopping piracy, global consumer advocacy group Consumers International plans to tell a UN internet meeting today. Such misuse includes limitations on the use of third-party content on devices such as the iPhone, and regional codes that prevent consumers from playing DVDs bought legally abroad in a consumer's home country.
In between climate change conferences, Christiana Figueres, newly appointed executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), was in Geneva yesterday to attend a ministerial meeting convened by the Swiss and Mexican governments on climate change finance.
The powerful World Intellectual Property Organization Program and Budget Committee is meeting this week for three days of discussions on a new strategic plan, the status of its audit function in the aftermath of past financial mismanagement, the financing of new projects related to the Development Agenda, and new policies on WIPO financial reserves, languages and investments.
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The global AIDS community meeting in Vienna last week ended with renewed determination to fight the epidemic but underlined an urgent need for increased funding to sustain scientific advances and universal access. Some warned against an intellectual property rights enforcement push threatening global access in particular through bilateral and regional trade agreements.
A last-chance negotiation of a draft protocol text on biodiversity access and benefit-sharing has been given yet another chance as delegates parted ways on Friday in Montreal without an agreement but with a tentative plan to reconvene to try to tie it up before a major UN Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in October.
The 18th International AIDS conference opened its doors in Vienna on Sunday with a purpose of keeping the HIV issue high among international priorities in the context of a global economic crisis, and to promote universal access to treatment.
The clock was ticking with only a day to go in this week’s meeting of a UN working group on biodiversity trying to reach an agreement on a draft protocol text on access and benefit-sharing.
Climate-friendly technologies are only rarely being transferred to developing countries, and then primarily to a small handful of emerging market economies, said the findings of a study presented today.
That the changing global climate requires urgent response, and that this response will most likely include technology, is largely agreed. But what role intellectual property rights play in making sure that technology exists and is available is still not yet fully understood.