WIPO General Assembly: Expectations loom over decisions on treaties for actors, reading disabled persons and genetic resources

The WIPO General Assembly meets from Monday, 26 September 2011 to Wednesday, 5 October 2011 and will take place at the International Conference Center Geneva (CICG), 17 rue de Varembé, 1211, Geneva.

The tentative schedule for 49th session of the WIPO General Assembly can be found here: http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/govbody/en/a_49/a_49_1_prov_2.pdf.

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Medicines Patent Pool agreement with Gilead contains flexibilities including termination provisions and severability of licenses

On 12 July 2011, the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and Gilead announced an agreement for Gilead to license patents for tenofovir (TDF), emtricitabine (FTC), elvitegravir (EVG), cobisistat (COBI) and a four drug combination of these drugs. KEI’s initial comments on the agreement are available here. Continue Reading

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Of WIPO, diplomatic conferences and international legally binding instruments

The 19th session of the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore is meeting this week in Geneva (18-22 July 2011) to make a a decision on a possible international legal instrument (or instruments) to protect genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore. At the discussions of future work on 19 July 2011, the United States (Albert Tramposch, USPTO) asked the WIPO Legal Counsel (Edward Kwakwa) the following question.

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2nd meeting of WHO Consultative Working Group on R&D Financing (CEWG): Summary of proceeedings by Chair (John Arne Røttingen)

On 8 July 2011, the WHO Consultative Expert Working Group on R&D Financing and Coordination (CEWG) held an open session to brief the public on their preliminary assessments and recommendations.

To access the slide presentation presented by the Chair (John Arne Røttingen, Norway) and Vice-Chair (Claudia Inês Chamas, Brazil), please click on the following link: http://www.who.int/phi/news/Open_Session_July_v3.pdf

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Notes from the Seventh Round of TPPA Negotiations in Vietnam

Last week I attended the seventh round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) that took place in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I was able to meet negotiators from all nine negotiating parties and was able to discuss our concerns regarding the proposed U.S. IP chapter for the TPPA, including, in particular, access to medicines and the right to health. I was also able to distribute the joint civil society comments previously submitted to the U.S. Continue Reading

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21 submissions to the WHO Consultative Expert Working Group on R&D Financing

In response to the WHO Consultative Expert Working Group on R&D Financing’s (CEWG) calls for submissions, 21 proposals were submitted to the CEWG in June 2011 for consideration by the CEWG at their second meeting (7-8 July 2011).

The general link to the WHO CEWG submissions page can be found here: http://www.who.int/phi/news/cewg_submissions/en/index.html

Reproduced below from the WHO CEWG page are links to all the proposals in the order they appear on the WHO page.

Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination (CEWG)

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SCCR22: Brazilian interventions in favor of a Treaty on exceptions and limitations to copyright for persons with disabilities

Mr Chairman,

It is with much pleasure that Brazil notes that we started this second week of the XXII SCCR with a text on the table that is co-sponsored by Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Ecuador, México, Paraguay, and the United States and that is also supported by the EU.

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