On March 13, 2013, the U.S. House of Representative held a hearing on U.S.-India Trade Relations. Among the several topics under discussion were “the issuance of compulsory licenses, patent revocations, and other policies on pharmaceuticals” in India.
On Monday, 25 March 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in the case, Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc., et. al. This case had previously been captioned as Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, et. al., but was recaptioned after the combination of Actavis and Watson. KEI filed an amicus brief in support of the FTC which is available here (along with additional background to the case). Continue Reading
The 16th round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) took place at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel in Singapore in early March.
On March 27, from noon to 3 pm, the IP Policy Committee of TACD will hold a meeting on the intellectual property chapter of the proposed U.S.-European Union Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
The meeting will be held at KEI’s offices at 1621 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20009
Today, 19 March 2013, the Supreme Court released its opinion in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, a case involving the parallel importation of copyrighted works. The case involved the petitioner, Kirtsaeng, purchasing textbooks in Thailand then reselling them in the United States. The Second Circuit held in this case that the first sale doctrine did not apply to foreign made goods, applying national exhaustion principles. Continue Reading
On Monday, March 18, 2013, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), held a conference call with the four NGOs that filed an October 25, 2012 march-in request for the patents held by Abbott Laboratories/AbbVie relevant to the manufacture and sale of ritonavir, a federally funded invention that is much more expensive in the United States than in Canada, Europe or other high-income countries, and is only available as a co-formulated product with AbbVie’s version of lopinavir. Continue Reading
Informed sources have provided KEI the following draft text of the IP chapter under negotiation between the European Union and India in current free trade agreement talks. KEI will provide analysis of these provisions in due course.
**Updated 19 March 2013, after the Supreme Court released its opinion in Kirtsaeng ruling to permit parallel importation of copyrighted works**
On Tuesday, 5 March 2013, Brazil delivered the following statement at the WTO TRIPS Council in favor of the LDC Group’s request for an extension to the transition period. The draft decision, if adopted as outlined in proposal (IP/C/W/583), would permit an LDC member not to apply the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement, other than Articles 3, 4 and 5, until they ceased to be an LDC.
Here is Brazilian intervention in full.
On 5 March 2013, the European Union delivered the following statement during WTO TRIPS Council discussions on the LDC group’s request for an extension of the transitional period for TRIPS implementation. Continue Reading