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

Global Innovation Divide: Can Investment In Innovation Bridge The Gap?

[David Branigan and William New] The Global Innovation Index 2018, launched on 10 July in New York, has lauded the rise of China as a model for how other low and middle-income economies can advance on innovation. Amid this optimism, however, the global innovation divide remains in step with the global income divide, raising questions for how to bridge this

Comments of the Global Expert Network on Copyright User Rights and Creative Commons Corporation (HQ) on South Africa’s Copyright Amendment Bill (2017) [B13-2017]

We commend Parliament for its forward-looking copyright amendments that will assist South African creators and users of copyrighted works benefit from the digital age. We commend you as well for the open public process through which you have drafted the bill. We support the specific textual suggestions included in the ReCreateSA submission. We provide the following comments focusing on Section

Permitted Uses in Copyright Law – Is There Need for an International Instrument?

[Reto Hilty and Valentina Moscon] Abstract: As a follow-up project to the “Declaration on a Balanced Interpretation of the Three-Step Test” (2008), the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition has coordinated an international group of world-renowned copyright experts to produce a legal instrument (possibly in the form of an international agreement) containing a nucleus of indispensable copyright-permitted uses that

Global Innovation Index 2018: China Breaks Into Top 20, US Drops Out Of Top 5

[David Branigan, IP-Watch] The 11th edition of the Global Innovation Index 2018 (GII), co-published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization, was released yesterday at a launch event in New York. This year’s report showed Switzerland still at the top overall, China continuing to rise, the United States slipping, and explored how countries can vary on inputs

People Living with Hepatitis C and HIV Challenge Evergreening Patents on Lifesaving Hepatitis C Drugs in India

[Delhi Network of Positive People] 10 July 2018: Delhi Network of Positive People (DNP+) has filed today two patent oppositions before the Indian patent office, challenging additional patent claims by US pharmaceutical corporation-Gilead Sciences for the hepatitis C medicines sofosbuvir and velpatasvir. These oppositions challenge Gilead’s patent applications for the tablet formulation of the fixed-dose combination of sofosbuvir/velpatasvir and the

Wink, Wink: Pfizer Agrees to Roll Back Price Hikes

In a staged play designed to give cover both to President Trump and Big Pharma, Pfizer has announced a temporary roll back of its extortionate price hikes on 41 medicines averaging nearly 9% over and above its existing monopoly prices. A scene-by-scene recap reveals the cozy, mutually beneficial farce that Trump and Pfizer are enacting. Scene One: Drug companies like