Year: 2010

At the proverbial 11th hour today, the World Health Organization published the final report of the “World Health Organization Expert Working Group on Research and Development Financing” in English three days before the commencement of the 126th session of the WHO Executive Board on January 18, 2010. At this juncture, it does not appear that the WHO Secretariat has made available official versions of this Report in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish for Member States’ consideration.

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The World Health Organization’s Expert Working Group on R&D Financing spent scant attention on how to raise money, but showed considerable interest in how to spend it. The clear favorite approach is to give grants to product development partnerships — the approach that has now become the most conventional approach, and one not surprisingly endorsed by the PDPs themselves, and also by the Gates Foundation and the IFPMA — two groups that are often seen as devoted to protecting the status quo in terms of intellectual property and business models for innovation.

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Some surprising taxes, and evidence of IFPMA lobbying

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On January 11, 2010, the Washington office of Google hosted a deb Continue Reading →

New documents have been published on the WHO website in relation to the third meeting of the WHO Expert Working Group on R&D Financing that took place from November 30 to December 2, 2009. These six documents are available at:

http://www.who.int/phi/ewg3rdmeet/en/index.html

The first document is: Comparative Review of Innovative Financing Proposals for Health R&D

The second document is: Coordinating Arrangements for R&D [doc 352kb]

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USTR has issued an announcement for new procedures including public hearings on the 2010 Special 301 list. This is an effort to make the 301 process somewhat more open, and to provide more formal opportunities to both supporters and critics of USTR’s bilateral trade pressures to make their case. USTR’s actions are welcomed by several NGOs that have been critical of the unilateral trade pressures initiative, as it seems to provide the beginning of a more mature discussion about the objectives of trade policy, and the evidence to support different positions. Continue Reading →

On February 8, 2010, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will hold a ” Symposium on the Evolution of the Regulatory Framework of Test Data – From the Property of the Intellect to the Intellect of Property“.

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Senator Wyden has written to the USTR posing 11 questions aiming to clarify the specific objectives of the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The next round of negotiations are scheduled to take place in Mexico during the week of January 25. The letter is available here. Continue Reading →

On December 21, 2009, WIPO sent out a circular note (C.N 3066) indicating “provisional dates for the principal committees and bodies of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that will meet in 2010”.

Here are provisional dates of key negotiations to bear in mind when planning your agenda for 2010.

SCP
WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents, SCP, (14th session): January 25-29, 2010.

WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents, SCP, (15th session): October 11-15, 2010

SCCR
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