The third attempt at concluding negotiations on a draft protocol text on international biodiversity access and benefit-sharing will take place in Montreal on 18-21 September, according to official sources. Delegates at the meeting will try to agree on the text, before the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Nagoya, Japan, in October. […]

There was significant activity at the close of the public comment period on Brazil’s proposed reform of its copyright law, according to blogger Volker Grassmuck, who has followed the reform effort closely. Grassmuck detailed a last minute rush in submissions on 31 August from a network of civil society and artists groups aiming to legalise […]

The second meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization Working Group on the Development of the Lisbon System (Appellations of Origin) is taking place in Geneva from 30 August – 3 September. At this meeting WIPO was expected to present a study on the relationship between regional systems for the protection of geographical indications and […]

Barely a year after her appointment as the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Administrator for Policy and External Affairs, Arti Rai has resigned her position and will go back to a faculty position at Duke University Law School, according to a USPTO spokesperson. Rai joined the USPTO in October 2009. Paul Salmon will […]

Sagging stock prices in the second quarter of 2010 attracted the interest of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the foundation added the Goldman Sachs Group and Monsanto to its portfolio, according to the Dow Jones Newswires. The foundation recently bought about 500,000 shares of the giant biotech company, according to another financial website. […]

German biotechnology company Bayer has met resistance in Brazil where the Paraná Federal Court revoked the authorisation for the commercial release of the company’s “Liberty Link” genetically modified maize on 27 July, according to a press release posted on the website of one of the civil lawsuit complainants. Described as a “landmark,” the ruling prohibits […]

An international set of civil society groups today sent a letter to the European Union trade commissioner outlining concerns that the latest, leaked, version of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement under negotiation will introduce “new and unbalanced intellectual property rules” which “would condone overzealous and erroneous enforcement of intellectual property for medicines and thereby pose a […]

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has posted supplemental interim guidance for the patent examining corps to use when determining subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in light of the US Supreme Court’s holding in Bilski v. Kappos (IPW, IP Law, 29 June 2010). The new guidelines can be found in […]

A new proposal from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a “Three Track” system for patent examination may violate US obligations under the World Trade Organization Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, US IP lawyer Harold Wegner, a partner at Foley & Lardner, has argued. The “Three-Track” programme would provide […]