On 30 July 2015 at 8:30 PM Geneva time, the Chair (Bucura Ionescu, Romania) of WIPO’s 22nd Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) distributed the following non-paper as a pathway for future work addressing 1) Exceptions and Limitations to Patent Rights, 2) Quality of Patents, Including Opposition Systems, 3) Patents and Health, 4) Confidentiality of Communications between clients and their patent advisors and 5) Transfer of technology. The SCP is WIPO”s main normative committee dealing with patents.
According to the Chair’s proposal, the next session of the SCP will devote half a day to a sharing session on experiences of experts from different regions on inventive step assessment in examination, opposition and revocation procedures.
The plenary is expected to meet at 10:30 AM Geneva time to discuss the Chair’s text; it is unclear at the time of writing if this proposal will reach consensus.
Language related to the proposal by the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries on a revision of the 1979 WIPO Model Law for Developing Countries on Inventions is contained in a separate document.
INFORMAL NON-PAPERSCP/22: PROPOSAL BY THE CHAIR
July 30, 2015
20:30
AGNEDA ITEM 8: FUTURE WORKThe Committee decided its future work as follows:
1. The non-exhaustive list of issues will remain open for further elaboration and discussion at the next session of the SCP.
2. Without prejudice to the mandate of the SCP, the Committee agreed that its work for the next session be confined to fact-finding and not lead to harmonization at this stage, and would be carried out as follows:
(1) Exceptions and Limitations to Patent Rights
– Compilation by the Secretariat of Member States’ experiences and case studies on the effectiveness of exceptions and limitations, in particular, in addressing development issues.(2) Quality of Patents, including Opposition Systems
– ½ day sharing session on experiences of experts from different regions on inventive step assessment in examination, opposition and revocation procedures.– The Secretariat will improve the webpage on work sharing and collaborative activities by SCP/24.
(3) Patents and Health
– ½ day seminar on the relationship between patent systems and, inter alia, challenges related to availability of medicines in developing countries and LDCs, including on the promotion of innovation and fostering of the requisite technology transfer to facilitate access to generic and patented medicines in developing and least developed countries.– Continue discussions on the feasibility study on disclosure of International Nonproprietary Names (INN) in patent applications and/or patents (document SCP/21/9).
(4) Confidentiality of communications between clients and their patent advisors
– Sharing session among Member States concerning confidentiality protection applied to different types of patent professionals and to national and foreign patent advisors.
(5) Transfer of Technology
– Discussion on transfer of technology vis-à-vis sufficiency of disclosure, based on document SCP/22/4.[End of document]