Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Key international agencies for health, trade and intellectual property on Friday jointly organised a symposium on access to medicines in an effort to gather information and expertise as a basis of a collaborative response to the challenges of public health.
Innovation is a key factor in economic growth but is not only about research as it is a system with many different interacting parts including R&D as one of those elements, a senior developed nations group representative said this week. Governments need to promote policies that integrate the cross-cutting nature of innovation and favour evidence based decision making, he said.
Filing of financial patents seems to be on a parallel upward trend with litigation in the United States, with large companies being prime targets, and individual or small entities owning the patents, according to a well-known US economist. This could be the consequence of low quality patents being granted, he said.
The plurilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and other such regional negotiations are a “bad development” for multilateral agencies, the World Intellectual Property Organization director general has told Intellectual Property Watch.
Member states at the World Intellectual Property Organization late Thursday night were unable to reach agreement on a draft chair’s conclusions text summarising a four-day WIPO copyright committee meeting, crashing the prospect of swift progress on improving international access to literary material for the visually impaired.
Limitations and exceptions are once again a major topic at the UN intellectual property organisation’s meeting on copyrights and related rights. Delegations this week are discussing several draft proposals to improve access, in particular for visually impaired people, each with their own set of recommendation. With a fourth and new proposal from the African countries on the table, delegates are meeting to try to find common ground, raising the expectations of civil society.
Quality across patent systems has been understudied but a new methodology put forward by the former chief economist of the European Patent Office suggests that the EPO provides higher quality services than its United States and Japan counterparts. Efforts at collaborative work between patent offices are being made but mutual recognition might not be possible or desirable without some harmonisation in the way the different systems operate.
In the run-up to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup in South Africa, sometimes described as the biggest marketing event in the world, there have been a number of instances where FIFA and local businesses have conflicted over the use of terms to advertise their products.
Dressed in casual weekend attire with white and blue “WIPO Staff” t-shirts, World Intellectual Property Organization personnel on 5 June gave explanations and guidance on intellectual property rights to the public, while a blimp-shaped balloon advertised the event outside the building. The WIPO lobby was turned into an intellectual property fair with stands displaying the range of WIPO’s services, and a much-appreciated wine tasting.
The World Intellectual Property Organization is opening its doors to the public on Saturday for a glimpse at the organisation’s activities, during its first-ever “open day.”
Negotiators trying to find a solution for the world’s print disabled, who have said copyright law is limiting their access to an already meagre supply of reading material in usable formats, began discussing a possible UN recommendation this week. But the print disabled and their strongest supporters have said such a recommendation - which would not be legally binding - would fall short of meeting their needs.
A leader for the World Intellectual Property Organization Global Challenges Division - tasked with connecting intellectual property to critical issues such as public health, food security, and climate change - has been named more than a year and a half after the division's creation.