Month: June 2017

Florida members in House and Senate Object to Proposed Exclusive License of Zika Vaccine

Posted on by KEI Staff

Yesterday, Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) sent a letter to Acting Secretary of the Army Robert Speer expressing strong concerns regarding the proposed exclusive license of a federally-funded Zika vaccine to Sanofi, stating that, “If the Army chooses to move forward with its plan to provide Sanofi Pasteur an exclusive license to sell this vaccine, it must first obtain assurances that the vaccine will be affordable to all who need it.” Senator Nelson is a senior member of the Committee on the Armed Services.

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June 2017 – WTO TRIPS Council – Statement of India on IP and the Public Interest – Compulsory Licensing

Posted on by Thiru

As reported by Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), on 6 June 2017, the World Trade Organization (WTO), published a paper tabled by Brazil, China, Fiji, India, and South Africa entitled, “Intellectual Property and the Public Interest.” In their communication (IP/C/W/630), the proponents called for a series of discussions at the WTO TRIPS Council on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest. Continue Reading →

Apple obtains compulsory license on patents owned by WARF, by District Court Judge in Wisconsin

Posted on by James Love

On June 6, 2017, Judge William Martin Conley, a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, issued a compulsory license allowing Apple Computers to use a patent it had infringed, owned by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), in return for an ongoing royally. Apple was found to infringe U.S. Patent No. 5,781,752, titled “Table based data speculation circuit for parallel processing computer. WARF asked for a permanent injunction to prevent future infringement. Continue Reading →

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FOIA documents: In 2015 Novartis asked U.S. Dept of Commerce to Pressure Colombia Against Compulsory License on Glivec

Posted on by Andrew Goldman

In February 2016, KEI submitted a FOIA to USTR requesting “all correspondence and notes sent internally by the Office of the US Trade Representative as well as with Colombian government officials, other foreign government officials, and non-governmental persons or entities regarding efforts in the government of Colombia to issue compulsory licenses on medical technologies. Continue Reading →

WTO TRIPS Council: Brazil, China, Fiji, India, and South Africa table agenda item on IP and the Public Interest

Posted on by Thiru

On 31 May 2017, the delegations of Brazil, China, Fiji, India, and South Africa tabled a paper to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) TRIPS Council entitled “Intellectual Property and the Public Interest.” In their communication (IP/C/W/630), the proponents called for a series of discussions at the WTO TRIPS Council on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest. Brazil, China, Fiji, India, and South Africa proposed compulsory licensing as the first theme of IP and the Public Interest discussions at the TRIPS Council meeting in June 2017.

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2017: PathoVax license on Chimeric L1/L2 Protein and Virus-Like Particles Based Human Papillomavirus Vaccines

Posted on by KEI Staff

(More on government funded inventions here. Other KEI comments on NIH licenses are found here.) On June 5, 2017, KEI provided comments to the NIH/NCI, on a prospective grant of an exclusive license to PathoVax, relating to HPV vaccines. On July 10,… Continue Reading →

WHO donors in 2016 (US, Gates Foundation, UK, GAVI Alliance, Japan): Setting the agenda for global public health?

Posted on by Thiru

In the run up to the 70th World Health Assembly (22 May 2017 – 31 May 2017), the World Health Organization prepared a document (A70/INF./4, 16 May 2017) entitled, Voluntary contributions by fund and by contributor, 2016. Total voluntary contributions to WHO in 2016 amounted to $1,717,219,177 which represented a dip from the 2015 figure of $1,836,970,206.

Here is a non-exhaustive list detailing the sources of voluntary contributions to WHO and the size of their respective contributions in 2016.

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