Category Events

Webinar – Guaranteeing Access to Medicines: Reforming Trade and Investment Treaties in the COVID-19 Era

[December 11, 2020 | 7am EST] Eight months into COVID-19, what is the status of the international investment regime and access to essential medicines? The GDP Center’s Working Group on Trade and Access to Medicines will host a panel discussion on trade, investment regime, and access to essential medicines. The event is co-sponsored with the South Centre, an intergovernmental organization of developing nations based in Switzerland.

Global Congress: Week on Intellectual Property, Public Interest and COVID-19 – Apply Now!

For all those interested who were waiting for the development of the Global Congress in 2020, we inform you that the event and in its full version, has been postponed to the year 2021. However, we invite you to participate in the activities that we will be organizing for this 2020 to be realized between the 5th and the 9th of October 2020, in order to have a virtual meeting space for the discussion of these topics that have shown their relevance in the framework of the global pandemic.

WEBINAR: The Global Health Impact – Extending Access to Essential Medicines

[Presentation and Discussion with Professor Nicole Hassoun, Binghamton University - July 15, 2020 | 5:00-6:00 pm EST] In Global Health Impact - Extending Access to Essential Medicines, Professor Nicole Hassoun proposes a novel approach to evaluate the impact of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical companies. The approach: Addresses questions and relies on methodology that is interdisciplinary in nature, covering fields of study including economics, political science, public policy, sociology, geography, and philosophy; Emphasizes empirical evidence as critical to assessing the capabilities and capacities of agents and institutions and valuing how facts inform political theory, and; Considers the obligations of pharmaceutical companies and the case for a new kind of ethical investment and consumption to promote global health from the perspective of bioethicists and business ethicists.

QUT Forum on Access to Essential Medicines — 15 February 2017

This forum was hosted by the QUT Intellectual Property and Innovation Law Research Program and the Australian Centre for Health Law Research in the QUT Faculty of Law to coincide with the visit of the Hon. Michael Kirby to the QUT Faculty of Law. It assessed and evaluated the recommendations of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on Access to Medicines. Access to medicines is a critical issue in respect of infectious diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, the SARS virus, Ebola, and the Zika virus. There have been a number of obstacles and barriers in respect of access to medicines — including the high prices caused by monopolies, and the absence of appropriate treatments for neglected diseases.

Big Win for Open Access to Law – Georgia v. Public.Resource.org

On April 27, 2020, the Supreme Court decided an important case about copyright law and access to the law -- Georgia v. Public.Resource.org, Inc. At issue was whether the state of Georgia owns a copyright in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (OCGA). The Court held that it does not and that the code in the public domain. This case is a big win for the movement for open access to law. This movement runs parallel with the movement to make scholarly and scientific publications open access. I wrote about the relationship between these two movements in my article, The Movement for Open Access Law, and this case represents a big step forward. Kudos to Carl Malamud and the attorneys who represented him for having the courage of their convictions.

A Public Health-Oriented Examination of Pharmaceutical Patent Claims: Sharing of Experiences at the Indian Patent Offices in Kolkata and Chennai

[Lucas van der Hoeven] How to examine pharmaceutical patent applications to ensure access to affordable generic medicines while rewarding genuine pharmaceutical inventions, in accordance with the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), was the focus of two training workshops organized by the South Centre at the Indian Patent Offices in Kolkata and Chennai on 10-11 February and 13-14 February, respectively. These activities were part of the collaboration between the South Centre and the Indian Patent Office under a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industries, Government of India. Patent examiners and controllers in the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology sections of the patent offices exchanged views with experts from the South Centre on possible approaches to the examination of various types of typical claims in pharmaceutical patent applications.

Global Congress Update, re: COVID 19

[Carolina Botero and Meredith Jacob] We have all been following the evolution of COVID 19, which has now been characterized as global pandemic by the World Health Organization. The safety of our participants and the health of our communities must be our highest priority, as we assess how to move forward with the Global Congress.

Dissecting the ISOC/PIR/Ethos Transaction

[Benjamin Leff] Significant concern and confusion has been generated by the relatively recent announcement by the Internet Society ("ISOC") that it will "sell" its subsidiary, Public Interest Registries ("PIR"), to the private equity firm Ethos Capital for more than 1.1 billion dollars. Among other things, PIR operates the .ORG domain registry, which generates tens of millions of dollars of revenue every year. ISOC is a nonprofit charity under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, as is PIR.

Call for Proposals Open for the 2020 Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest

We in Colombia are looking forward to welcoming you to Cartagena for the 6th Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest, August 13-15. From this week on the registry and call for session proposals is open! It includes the request for scholarships. We will have three main tracks on Medicines, Digital Rights, and Copyright Reforms and Open Policies. We will also have two cross-cutting tracks: Traditional Knowledge and Trade Agreements.

WIPO and the US Copyright Office Examine Artificial Intelligence and, to Lesser Extent, Intellectual Property

[Andrés Izquierdo and Sean Flynn] On February 5, 2020, the U.S. Copyright Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) co-sponsored a well-attended event on Copyright in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The full-day event took an in-depth look at the development and operation of artificial intelligence (“AI”). It paid substantially less attention to the full range of intellectual property issues raised by this new field.