Medicines Excitement In The Netherlands – New Health Minister Announces Firm Action On “Absurd” Medicines Pricing And Gets The European Medicines Agency 27/11/2017 by Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment The new Minister of Health of the Netherlands, Bruno Bruins, came in guns blazing when he put the pharmaceutical industry on notice and announced on 22 November to “change the rules of the game” to tackle, what he called “absurd” medicines pricing, writes Ellen ‘t Hoen.
Studies Presented At WIPO To Better Understand Limitations To Copyright 17/11/2017 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment With no consensus on conducting normative work at the World Intellectual Property Organization on the limitations to copyright for certain actors such as persons with disabilities, educational institutions, and museums, the committee on copyright had agreed on several studies so the issues are better understood. This week, several of those studies were presented to the committee and shed some further light on the issues.
How Solid IP Security Policy Could Have Prevented The Waymo vs. Uber Legal Debacle 08/11/2017 by Bruce Gain for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment Waymo likely could have avoided a lawsuit against Uber over driverless car technology if it had an effective policy to prevent trade theft by its employees, legal and security experts say.
Custom Built Software And The IP Law – What You Need To Know 07/11/2017 by Guest contributor for Intellectual Property Watch 2 Comments The practice of building custom software is alive and well despite the emergence of tons of ready to use offline and online business apps. Businesses build custom software for various reasons. Some are unsatisfied by solutions available on the market, others need very specific features or overall functionality, security and privacy concerns are another major driver of tailored software development. The process of building custom software involves five basic stages, if you stick to traditional software development workflow, or an indefinite number of iterations under agile development method. Both approaches, however, include various scenarios in which intellectual property rights are involved, writes Jorge Sagastume.
The User Rights Database: Measuring The Impact Of Copyright Balance 01/11/2017 by Intellectual Property Watch 2 Comments PIJIP’s Copyright User Rights Database tracks changes to copyright user rights (aka limitations and exceptions) over time in a sample of 21 countries of different development levels. The data assesses the degree to which other countries have adopted exceptions that are as open as the US fair use right – i.e. open to a use of any kind of work, by any kind of user and for any purpose. The instrument and results are available at infojustice.org/survey.
A Look Back: Challenges Of Open Access In 2017 (An Industry Perspective) 27/10/2017 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment Suzanne Kavanagh writes: Over the course of the year, three issues repeatedly reared their heads as barriers to the successful implementation of Open Access: the burden of expected author OA expertise; the underutilization of metadata in the publication lifecycle, and the challenges posed to authors and institutions by one-off solutions. As the tenth Open Access Week draws to a close, with its focus on the concrete benefits of making scholarly research openly available, where have we gotten to in solving these problems and realizing the potential of OA?
Reaping The Benefits Of Artificial Intelligence 26/10/2017 by Guest contributor for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment Your brand is everything in the global marketplace. It is no exaggeration to say that a business now lives and dies by both its offline, online and social reputation. Because of this, searching a trademark is more vital than ever before. It is important for trademark professionals to work faster and more effectively in searching, clearing and registering strong marks to ensure clients have a competitive advantage. To do so requires the merging of the old and new: the specific knowledge that only highly experienced trademark experts can provide, with the advantages of the latest wave of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, writes Ronda Majure.
WIPO Report To Annual Assemblies Contains Some Interesting Facts 20/10/2017 by William New, Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment Among all the high-profile issues on the stage and the countless side meetings and cultural celebrations happening at the annual World Intellectual Property Organization annual Assemblies, there were some interesting facts and figures presented about the UN agency itself.
In US, New Legal Ploy May Protect Bad Patents 18/10/2017 by Steven Seidenberg for Intellectual Property Watch 2 Comments It had been a bad three months for Allergan, Inc. The drug maker’s stock price had fallen over 20 percent, as the company faced two legal challenges to the patents on its blockbuster drug, Restasis. Then, on 16 October, Allergan lost one of those challenges. A US court found the patents invalid. Allergan vowed to appeal, thus maintaining its monopoly on the drug until a final court determination, which could be over a year away. But Allergan’s monopoly could collapse far sooner, if the company were to lose the second challenge to the patents, before the USPTO. Such a loss was probable, as the agency had already found a “reasonable likelihood” that prior art invalidated the patents on Restasis. So back in September, Allergan employed an innovative legal strategy: The company gave its patents to a Native American tribe, and the tribe claimed its sovereign immunity prevented the USPTO from reviewing the patents’ validity. If this strategy were to succeed, it will do far more than just boost Allergan’s bottom line. The new strategy will increase the power of patent owners, help patent trolls, and dramatically alter the US patent system.
EU To Get Rid Of Big Pharma-Friendly SPCs 18/10/2017 by Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment Extended monopoly protection by the Regulation EC 469/2009 concerning the supplementary protection certificate (SPC) mechanism for medicinal products has led to spiralling prices in Europe for lifesaving medicines, while exhausting the national budgets and depriving patients of fair access to treatments. The EU Commission should repeal the SPCs and put in practice the recommendations signed on 8 September 2017 by thirty-three civil society organisations, in alignment with the final report of the UN High Level Panel on Access to Medicines, writes Daniele Dionisio.