The second session of the the WIPO Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) is meeting this week in Geneva (July 7-11, 2008). The first meeting of this development committee (March 2008) examined Cluster A (Technical Assistance and Capacity Building) of the 45 approved Development Agenda recommendations. Continue Reading
After a hiatus of three years, the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) met for its 12th session on June 23, 2008 to June 27, 2008. Given the collapse of the talks to initiate a Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT) to harmonize patent law with respect to prior art, novelty, inventive step and grace period, even the most prescient of WIPO watchers were at a loss in prognosticating the outcome of the WIPO SCP. Continue Reading
At 10:52 AM today, the United States of America (on behalf of Group B, the “rich country” group of WIPO) nominated Maximiliano Santa Cruz of Chile to be chair of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP). Singapore, on behalf of the Asian Group, seconded the nomination of Mr Santa Cruz and proposed candidates from China and Romania as Vice-Chairs. Brazil registered its support for this complement of candidates.
We have received a copy of an amendment to the September 2006 voluntary License Agreement between Gilead Sciences, Inc and Ranbaxy Laboratories, Ltd concerning the manufacture and sale of Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate (TDF) and Emtricitabine for the treatment of HIV-AIDS.
The WHO IGWG drafting group meeting in Salle XXIII of the Palais des Nations during this week’s World Health Assembly is charged with hammering out a consensus global strategy that would inter alia, secure
an enhanced and sustainable basis for needs-driven, essential health research and development relevant to diseases that disproportinately affect developing countries, proposing clear objectives and priorities for research and development, and estimating funding needs in in this area.
On Tuesday, 20 May 2008, the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia and Tunisia introduced a draft resolution (A61/A/Conf. Paper No 1) on counterfeiting.
While counterfeiting medicines is an important public health problem, and as traditionally defined, is a criminal enterprise that should be subject to tough legal sanctions, the resolution is problematic.
During the IGWG, BIO, the trade association, a group not yet in official relations with the WHO, was given the right to place four persons inside the closed drafting sessions. One of them was Jon Santamauro, who until recently was a US trade official on intellectual property issues.
“Mr. Santamauro has more than 15 years of experience handling intellectual property issues for the U.S. Government.”
On April 15, 2008, WIPO released its long awaited Report on the International Patent System. Continue Reading
One of the most important battles being waged both inside and outside of the IGWG concerns the nature of competition for the supply of inexpensive medicines and vaccines.
The large pharma companies with well-known brands and big marketing and distribution systems want to marginalize developing country generic suppliers, as actual or potential competitors. This plays out in various ways. For example:
https://www.keionline.org/misc-docs/b_b_igwg/working_document_barbados_bolivia.pdf April 2008 According to resolution WHA60.30 on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property, the Director-General of the WHO is asked: (4) to encourage the development of proposals for health-needs driven research and development for discussion at the Intergovernmental Working… Continue Reading