On 5 March 2013, the Government of India made the following intervention at the TRIPS Council under agenda item 11, request for an extension of the transitional period under Article 66.1 of the TRIPS Agreement. In their intervention, India unequivocally supported the duly motivated requested submitted by Haiti on behalf of the LDC Group on 5 November 2012 (IP/C/W/583).

India asserted that the "no roll back provision" of the 2005 extension had no place in the TRIPS Agreement and noted that

On 5 March 2013, the Government of India delivered the following statement at the TRIPS Council on agenda item 13, Intellectual Property and Innovation: Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, a standalone item tabled by Chile, Chinese Taipei, the Republic of Korea and the United States of America.

We thank the delegations of Chinese Taipei, Korea, the United States and others for tabling an agenda item on "Intellectual Property and Innovation: Small and medium Sized Enterprises" which we understand is a standalone item.

As others have reported, the India Intellectual Property Appeals Board (IPAB) has upheld the compulsory license on the Bayer patents on the cancer drug sorafenib, sold under the trademark of Nexavar by Bayer.

KEI comment on the Medicines Patent Pool license and MoU with ViiV Healthcare
28 February 2013

FYI: James Love (james.love@keionline.org, +1.202.361.3040), Krista Cox (krista.cox@keionline.org, +1.202.332.2670) or Thiru Balasubramaniam (thiru@keionline.org).

The 27 February 2013 agreements between the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and ViiV Healthcare, a joint venture of GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, and Shionogi will expand access to affordable pediatric formulas for HIV/AIDS.

On 26 February 2013, one week before the WTO TRIPS Council (5-6 March 2013) meets to consider the LDC Group's request (IP/C/W/583) for an extension of the transitional period under Article 66.1 of the TRIPS Agreement, UNDP and

On January 8, 2013, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) issued a joint statement on "remedies for standards-essential patents subject to voluntary F/RAND commitments. (Copy of statement here).

The following statement was delivered at the 19th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law Of Patents (SCP) after presentations by the secretariats of WIPO, WHO and WTO on the trilateral report.

26 February 2013

The following WTO airgram WTO/AIR/4075/REV.1 (22 February 2013) contains the agenda for the upcoming WTO Council for TRIPS meeting to be held in Geneva from Tuesday, 5 March 2013 to Wednesday, 6 March 2013. The March 2013 session of the TRIPS Council will discuss the LDC Group's request (IP/C/W/583) for an extension of the transitional period under Article 66.1 of the TRIPS Agreement under agenda item 11.

On 17 October 2012, the State Intellectual Property Office of China submitted the following comments to the Electronic Forum of WIPO's Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) in relation to the future work of the Committee. The written submission focused on: 1) Exceptions and Limitations to Patent Rights, 2. Quality of Patents and 3. Patents and Health. These points were encapsulated in China's general intervention today.

[English translation by WIPO]

The 19th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) meets in Geneva from 25 February 2013 to 28 February 2013. The 18th session of the SCP ended on a contentions note as WIPO member states could not agree upon the future work of the Committee. In fact, SCP 19 was initially scheduled for November 2012 but was delayed till February 2013 as WIPO's membership thought informal discussions were required to produce a successful outcome for the future work of the patent committee.

WIPO is spending five days in a special session to work on the text for a treaty on copyright exceptions for persons who are blind or have other disabilities.

KEI has obtained a copy of the latest version as of Friday morning, which is attached below.

The first four days have been consumed with highly technical but important debates of the international rules for copyright exceptions. The US and the EU are demanding that all sorts of language be put into the treaty referring to a three step test to restrict the use of exceptions.

These are KEI's February 17, 2013 comments on the the Bayer appeal of the compulsory license on Nexavar patents.

The dispute is Bayer Corporation v Natco Pharma Limited, and is being heardbefore the Intellectual Property Appellate Board At Chennai (O.R.A. no. 35/PT/2012).

Attached below is the version of the negotiating text from 20 February 2013. It includes several new or edited footnotes. We expect the WIPO Special Session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) to discuss the new text at the plenary which is scheduled to commence at 10, Wednesday, 21 February 2013.

Footnote 10 is placed within Article E of the draft treaty text on "Importation of Accessible Format Copies" which states

For the past year, a treaty on copyright exceptions for persons who are blind or have other disabilities has been hung up on demands by the European Union to insert provocative language on the so called "three step test" in copyright into the treaty. The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement is in the middle of a similar dispute, with the US pushing language that would place the three step test on top of all copyright limitations and exceptions, including those set out a particular cases in the Berne Convention.

On Tuesday, 19 February 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in the case, Bowman v. Monsanto. This case involves the application of the patent exhaustion doctrine to self-replicating technology, in this case, seeds.