Advocating for a world where intellectual
property law serves the public interest.

Patent Pooling to Increase Access to Essential Medicines

[Esteban Burrone et. al.] In 2016, the Lancet Commission on Essential Medicines Policies, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other stakeholders called for the patent pool to expand its mandate to a broader range of patented essential medicines.[5,6] Here, we outline the findings of a released feasibility study on expanding the patent pool’s mandate,[7] laying out the public health case
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Decolonising Copyright: Building Our Creative and Information Economy

[AfroChic] On the 7th of August 2019 RecreateSA convened a seminar in association with the South African Guild of Actors, the University of the Witwatersrand’s Library, Blind SA, the University of Cape Town’s IP Unit, the South African Democratic Teacher’s Union, Washington College of Law’s Programme on Information Justice and Intellectual Property and the University of the Witwatersrand’s Institute for
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Are Foreigners Treated Equally Under TRIPS?

[Gaétan de Rassenfosse, Paul H. Jensen, T'Mir Julius, Alfons Palangkaraya, and Elizabeth Webster] Abstract: The TRIPS Agreement, administered by the World Trade Organisation, ensures the smooth functioning of the international patent system. It promises among others that local and foreign firms are treated in the same, non-discriminatory manner. We test for whether national treatment has been upheld in the five
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SPARC Urges Department of Justice to Block Merger Between Cengage and McGraw-Hill

[SPARC press release] Today, SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) submitted a detailed filing to the U.S. Department of Justice urging federal antitrust enforcers to block the proposed merger between college textbook publishing giants Cengage and McGraw-Hill Education. The merger would create the largest publisher of college course materials in the United States and the world’s second largest
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The Same Problem, Different Outcome: Online Copyright Infringement and Intermediaries’ Liability Under the US and the EU Law

[Lia Shikhiashvili] Abstract: ... Recently, the European Union has adopted a new Copyright Directive, which, in article 17 (ex-article 13) indirectly introduces filtering and monitoring obligations to online platforms that allow users to upload content. It creates the “de facto strict liability regime” for internet intermediaries to root out copyright-infringing content. In contrast with this approach, in the United States
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Global Drug Diffusion and Innovation with a Patent Pool: The Case of HIV Drug Cocktails

[Lucy Xiaolu Wang] Abstract: ...I study the impact of the first joint licensing platform for drug bundling (the Medicines Patent Pool) on global drug diffusion and innovation. The pool allows generic firms worldwide to sublicense drug bundles cheaply and conveniently for sales in a set of developing countries. I construct a novel dataset from licensing contracts, public procurement, clinical trials,
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