Intellectual Property Rights

Wellcome Trust tells WHO it opposes R&D Treaty and the de-linkage of R&D costs from drug prices

Posted on by Thiru

At WHO deliberations (26 November 2012 to 28 November 2012) on charting a path forward following the recommendations of the Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination (CEWG), Bolivia, Colombia and Thailand reiterated their political commitment supporting a binding R&D treaty. Continue Reading →

Update: WTO Trade Policy Review of Israel covers new developments on fair use, data exclusivity and parallel importation

Posted on by Thiru

UPDATE: On 3 December 2012, the secretariat of the World Trade Organization (WTO) released the minutes of Israel’s Trade Policy Review (WT/TPR/M/272) held on 30 October 2012 and 1 November 2012. According to the chair, Eduardo Munoz Gomez (Colombia), innovation was one of the salient points identified in the TPR noting that:

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US department of Commerce heavily redacts FOIA request regarding Thailand compulsory license

Posted on by James Love

What type of leverage has the Obama Administration used to pressure Thailand to prevent the granting of compulsory licenses on drug patents? The US Department of Commerce has just released a FOIA request with 298 pages of documents on this topic. 136 pages of the FOIA are for a Fall 2010 masters theses by Stephanie Tranchevent Rosenberg (pages 36 to 171 of the FOIA). Continue Reading →

Data on Chinese patent applications and grants suggests growing gap between political rhetoric and current realities

Posted on by James Love

The GOP platform mentions China 15 times, including these passages:

Our serious trade disputes, especially China’s failure to enforce international standards for the protection of intellectual property and copyrights, as well as its manipulation of its currency, call for a firm response from a new Republican Administration. . .

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Update: Global Fund responds to Report on William Steiger

Posted on by Thiru

The Global Fund just sent an email, which says that “your website which inaccurately reports that Mr Steiger will run VPP.” Here is the Global Fund email:

From: Andrew Hurst
Date: June 20, 2012 5:36:49 PM GMT+02:00
To: Thirukumaran Balasubramaniam Subject: RE: Question on the Global Fund’s Voluntary Pooled Procurement?

Dear Thiru

Further to our conversation this week, here is our statement:

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WTO disputes- Intellectual property dimensions of the Boeing case (WT/DS353)

Posted on by Thiru

“Roma locuta causa finita est” (Rome has spoken, therefore the case has been decided) was the maxim employed by medieval jurists to describe the absolute irrevocability of papal judgements in canon law. Today, in modern international trade law, the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Appellate Body fulfills a similar function as the international trading system’s “Supreme Court”. In the words of the WTO,

[t]he Appellate Body was established in 1995 under Article 17 of the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU). Continue Reading →

The Johnson & Johnson Acuvue Compulsory License

Posted on by Anne Mira Guha

In April of 2010, District Judge Timothy J. Corrigan (M.D Florida, Jacksonville division) declined to grant a permanent injunction following a finding that the Johnson & Johnson’s ACUVUE®OASYS contact lens product infringed patents owned by CIBA Vision Corporation, providing another example of, in effect, a judicial compulsory license following the 2006 eBay v. MercExchange case; the judge wrote:

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