WIPO TK Committee Chair Adjourns Session Abruptly, Demands Clear Positions 24/03/2014 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment The World Intellectual Property Organization meeting on traditional knowledge and folklore meeting this week was abruptly adjourned by the chair this afternoon, to reconvene tomorrow morning, with a head-on challenge to governments.
Analysis Shows Mixed Results On Big Pharma R&D Efforts For TB 24/03/2014 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment In time for World TB Day today, an analysis has been published of research and development being carried out for tuberculosis by the 20 largest pharmaceutical companies.
WIPO Design Treaty Fate Left To Assembly, Despite Shift On Technical Assistance 21/03/2014 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment The World Intellectual Property Organization committee on trademarks could not agree this week to recommend the convening of a high-level meeting to adopt a treaty on industrial designs.
Quantitative Analysis Of Contributions To NETMundial Meeting 20/03/2014 by Intellectual Property Watch 2 Comments A quantitative analysis of the 187 submissions to the April NETmundial conference on the future of internet governance shows broad support for improving security, ensuring respect for privacy, ensuring freedom of expression, and globalizing the IANA function, analyst Richard Hill writes.
New Document On Technical Assistance, But WIPO Design Treaty Still In Trouble 20/03/2014 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment World Intellectual Property Organization delegates are trying to find a way out of a dividing line on how to address technical assistance in a potential new treaty on industrial designs. A new non-paper by the chair of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical indications (SCT) was released this morning. At stake is the committee’s recommendation on the convening of a high level meeting to agree on the treaty.
WIPO Trademark Committee Opens With Firm Positions On Design Treaty 18/03/2014 by Julia Fraser for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment At the outset of this week’s World Intellectual Property Organization trademark committee meeting, several member states cited a pressing need to move forward in preparing recommendations for a treaty on industrial designs. Others maintained firm positions on the unresolved issue of keeping a provision on technical assistance to developing countries as part of the treaty text.
Interview With Hans Hogerzeil: Recognising Good Practices Of Pharma 18/03/2014 by Julia Fraser for Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment The issue of medicines access for low-income people in developing countries has been of major concern to global health policymakers for years. A key issue is the inability of northern pharmaceutical producers to develop and distribute affordable medicines and recover their research and development costs. As part of the effort to address this, a non-governmental group was formed in coordination with industry and other stakeholders to develop an index to rate companies’ efforts to ameliorate the situation. Julia Fraser for Intellectual Property Watch recently sat down with Hans Hogerzeil, a former senior World Health Organization official and a top strategist for the Access to Medicine Index, to discuss the index’s impact, independence and the future.
Innovating To Help African Students Learn With Legal, Affordable Textbooks 17/03/2014 by Linda Daniels for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment An innovative South African start-up is offering local university students a way around buying cheap pirated books with a legal print-on-demand service that slashes the price of expensive academic textbooks.
WIPO Shows Record Growth Across International IP Filing Systems 13/03/2014 by Maëli Astruc for Intellectual Property Watch and Julia Fraser for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment “Intellectual property, in general, is in a growth mode, and in a growth mode which is considerably in excess of either the national GDP growth rates or the world GDP growth rates,” World Intellectual Property Organisation Director General Francis Gurry said today.
Book Challenges ‘Neoliberal’ Approach In Global Public Health Policy 12/03/2014 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment A recent book by a UK journalist and lecturer illustrates that recent reforms in global public health policy have ignored public health needs in favour of market-based ideologies.