Intellectual Property Rights / Droits de propriété intellectuelle

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    One-Day Preliminary National Consultation on Access to Patented Knowledge "Patents and Platform Technologies: Understanding Implications for Research and Development in Malaria and Tuberculosis"
    (2010)
    Mr. Linu Mathew Philip, Executive Director, Centad warmly welcomed all distinguished resource people and delegates attending the consultation. He began the introduction by stating the importance of platform technology as an inter-phase to access medicine, in a time when pathogens were getting more resilient and there are fewer technologies to take on these issues. Mr. Philip also mentioned about Centad‟s dreams of access to medicines by taking on the policy issues effectively and aggressively. To make policies enable in such a way that people can have access to medicines and access to innovations, adding that technologies can find a good solution to these existing disease and the diseases that maybe coming in the course of time...
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    Quelle organisation communautaire de la recherche pour stimuler l'innovation dans la zone CEMAC ?
    (2010)
    Dans le cadre de son projet de recherche sur le thème dans quelle mesure l’exemption de la recherché peut-elle stimuler l’innovation, l’Appia a mené un ensemble de travaux dont plus d’un s’est intéressé à la problématique de l’état de la recherche dans la zone Cemac. A la suite de ces travaux, une préoccupation principale est née de la constatation de ce que l’état de la recherche dans cette sous-région était assez critique, non pas seulement du fait de l’absence d’une politique y relative, mais aussi et surtout du fait de la vétusté des outils institutionnels, juridiques et techniques qui concourent à son efficacité et sa contribution au développement socioéconomique de la zone...
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    Compulsory Licenses as means to Access Patented Platform Technologies in TB and Malaria
    (2010)
    Patents are issued to protect inventions and innovations and to serve as incentive for more such activity and as consideration for disseminating the invention/innovation to the wider public. This is expected to lead to larger quantity of the product/service which the patent contains so that the availability would be more and wide spread. It would also encourage competition. Hence the main purpose of issue of patent is encouraging dissemination of knowledge and wider use. If it really happens in the field it is very good. But does it really happen? The situation in the field at times is to exclude than include more people as users of knowledge embedded in a patent. This can happen by broad patents, refusal to license the patent etc. This can lead to monopolies, high prices, slow or no progress on follow-on research, reduced number of new products in the market etc. Ultimately in the case of biomedical research it can lead to reduced access to health care products which are vital. In this area especially after the advent of biotechnology there is a unusual increase in patenting activity by the academia and industry which includes upstream patenting which is the main concern of this study.
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    Exploring Patent Pooling as a Tool for National Development
    (2009)
    As a response to the global competition initiated by the Call for Proposal by the International Development Research Center on the theme “ACCESSING PATENTED KNOWLEDGE FOR INNOVATION”, this Paper aims at exploring patent pools, a locally unfamiliar yet internationally-recognized and century-old approach to technology commercialization, as a tool for national development in the Philippines...
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    Indian Biotech Industry and Patent Pooling
    (2009)
    The Indian biotech industry has increased five-fold from its size in 1997 and valued at about $2.5 billion in 2008- 09 which was then about 2% of the global biotech market. The presentation reviews patents in biotechnology, and organizations working in the field in areas of stem cell research, transgenic research, biopesticides, neurobiology; vectors, genes for plant trait; genomics; nanotechnology; recombinant product; therapeutics; biopolymer and others. It explores patent pooling in the context of industry in India. There is no clear incentive in low-income countries for companies to contribute their high-valued patents to a patent pool.
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    Indian researchers’ perceptions of access problems of protected platform technologies and experiences
    (2010-10)
    The presentation focuses on a survey of researchers specifically working on tuberculosis (TB) or Malaria, and development of a survey instrument to measure their ability to access technologies and resulting patents derived from research work. The majority of respondents did not face any problems of denial of license or breakdown of negotiations to license in patented platform technologies. But ~30% of respondents abandoned their research due to lack of resources that would enable adoption of costly technologies or due to restrictive clauses in their agreements.
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    Patent Pooling: A Tool to Resolve the Problem of Thickets
    (2010-04)
    The presentation expands on the concept of “thickets” in Intellectual Property Rights such as when a company obtains multiple patents associated with a product, process, or formulation “during and towards the end of the protection period of the base patent, with the aim of keeping generics off the market beyond expiry of the first patent.” A disincentive to invest in R&D can result where there is a patent thicket. Patent-pools are suggested as a means to counter-balance the effects of thickets. Examples of successful patent-pools are provided.
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    Patent Pools Across Industries: Issues and Challenges
    (2010-04)
    The presentation reviews some of the history of the first patent pools. Some recent patent pools include those in consumer electronics necessitated by the need for standard setting (MPEG, JPEG, DVD, or other format standards). Patent holders agree to a central administrative authority, who licenses to third parties. This process can provide a solution to anti-competitive practices of patent ‘holdout’ or refusal to license. Controversial arguments around competitiveness are presented and discussed.
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    Mapping of patents in India of the platform technologies and TB & Malaria
    (2010)
    Platform Technology includes research tools which refer to the materials and methods scientists need in order to carry out research, such as those used in laboratories (which have no immediate value). Others may be already end products such as cell lines, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), monoclonal antibodies, adjuvants, reagents, organisms. The presentation provides information on patent protection, licensing and other matters intrinsic to enabling research activities, with a focus on TB and Malaria. Research tool-specific patent protection would include research tools such as are used to perform specific tests; for instance, the HIV/HCV test can be protected in research tool-specific patent protection.
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    Access to Patented of Platform technologies in TB and Malaria - Issues and possible solutions in Indian Context
    (2010) Visalakshi, S; Santhosh, M R
    Patents are issued to protect inventions and innovations and to serve as incentive for more such activity and as consideration for disseminating the invention/innovation to the wider public. This is expected to lead to larger quantity of the product/service which the patent contains so that the availability would be more and wide spread. It would also encourage competition. Hence the main purpose of issue of patent is encouraging dissemination of knowledge and wider use. If it really happens in the field it is very good. But does it really happen? The situation in the field at times is to exclude than include more people as users of knowledge embedded in a patent. This can happen by broad patents, refusal to license the patent etc. This can lead to monopolies, high prices, slow or no progress on follow-on research, reduced number of new products in the market etc. Ultimately in the case of biomedical research it can lead to reduced access to health care products which are vital. In this area especially after the advent of biotechnology there is a unusual increase in patenting activity by the academia and industry which includes upstream patenting which is the main concern of this study. TB and malaria are diseases of importance to India and developing countries. There is still a high incidence of infections and resistance to drug and insecticides have led to new forms of TB like MDRs and XDRs and in the case of malaria, resurgence of the disease. There are efforts at global and Indian levels to stop TB and drugs/vaccines for Malaria etc. In India, research is on at the basic level to understand infectiveness of the pathogen and immunity of the populations to find clues to discover and design drugs, develop diagnostics, which can detect infections rapidly and come out with vaccines for the above diseases.
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    Patent Pools in China - Patenting Behavior of Foreign Invested Firms and Its Implication on Local Innovation Capabilities and IP Policy Challenges
    (2010)
    The research project is designed under situation that developing countries such as China, suffer greatly from technical monopolies and tight technology controls by larger multinational corporations in both domestic market in China and overseas market, due to their limited technological capabilities. Patented technologies in China in recent years become increasingly competitive and largely controlled by MNEs, with patent pool being one of the most significant power over local companies in typical high tech fields. Technological gap between developing countries and developed countries thus in this regard is increasingly severer. Therefore, the research project is aimed at providing lessons and reference to local policy makers in developing countries, particularly in China, local companies in FDI hosting countries, as well as to internationally invested firms...
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    Under Utilization of the Patent System and TRIPS research exemption in Developing Countries: The case of Tanzania
    (2010)
    Intellectual property (IP) has received more recognition in today’s knowledge led economy. The importance of it cannot be overemphasized. A study was conducted to find out the status of utilization of the patent system and the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement research exemption among Tanzanian researchers in building their research capabilities and capacities. IP awareness, utilization of the patent system and the research exemption are among the major factors in developing innovative research in developing countries. The unfortunate side is that developing countries particularly, Tanzania has not yet made effective use of the IP for their socio-economic development as revealed by the study.
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    Access to Knowledge in Biotechnology: Can Patent Pooling Work in India?
    (2010)
    The concern for adequate access to patented knowledge is as old as the history of modern intellectual property rights (IPR). While it was always thought that the poor consumers may not be able to access knowledge, with the internationalization of IPR in particular due to the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), it was pointed out by many that developing countries would find it difficult to access patented knowledge (Maskus 2000; Giannakas 2001). The issue of access to patented knowledge created in the developed world by the developing countries came to limelight in 1998, when 39 big pharmaceutical companies sued the government of South Africa which was trying to deal with the problem of AIDS by importing drugs from companies which were not authorised licensee to produce these drugs as they were operating in countries that allowed such production. This created a major backlash as NGOs and activists launched a global movement as they thought that this move by the companies would undermine the efforts to combat the AIDS crisis (IEGBIIP 2008)...
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    Accessing Patented Knowledge for Innovation - Technical Report
    (2010-08)
    As the world moves towards a knowledge-based economy, where wealth creation is no longer based on the capital investment, but rather on the brainpower and ability to create, Intellectual property (IP) has become an integral part of world business and a major source for wealth creation and economic growth (ARIPO, 2002). The current debate on the role of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and economic development generally as well as implications on research capabilities and capacities is linked to the fundamental changes that have taken place in international IPR system following the implementation of the Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement....
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    Patent Pooling and Access to Knowledge: A case study of biotechnology with reference to India
    (2010)
    The concern for adequate access to patented knowledge is as old as the history of modern intellectual property rights. The public good nature of intellectual property has always been cited as the reason for providing legal protection to creator of knowledge. Intellectual property is characterised by what economists call rival nature meaning that once knowledge has been created other cannot be excluded from its use. Thus cost of recreation of knowledge is zero. This means marginal cost of creating knowledge is also zero. In a competitive market price is equal to marginal cost and hence market-determined price of knowledge creation would also be zero. In such a situation there would not be enough incentive for creation of knowledge or innovation. Hence the system of legal protection intellectual property rights evolved to make knowledge an excludable product...
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    Final Research Report: Patent Pools in China - Patenting Behavior of Foreign Invested Firms and Its Implication on Local Innovation Capabilities and IP Policy Challenges
    (2010-05)
    The research project is designed under situation that developing countries such as China, suffer greatly from technical monopolies and tight technology controls by larger multinational corporations in their invested regions, due to their limited technological capabilities, especially due to legislative power on newly developed technologies such as patented inventions. Patented technologies in China in recent years become increasingly competitive and largely controlled by MNEs, with patent pool being one of the most significant power over local companies by foreign firms in typical high tech fields. Technological gap between developing countries and developed countries thus in this regard is increasingly severer. Therefore, the research project may provide helpful lessons and reference to policy makers, local companies in FDI hosting countries, as well as to internationally invested firms.
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    Assessing the Challenges of Patent and Research Exemptions on Research Capacity and Utilization in Universities, Research Institutions and Industry in Botswana
    (2010-07) Ama, Njoku Ola; Fombad, Charles M
    The study analyzed the opinion of a stratified sample of 366 people from universities, research institutions and industry in Botswana on how patent regime and research exemptions impact on their research capacities and utilization of research outputs. The results of the study showed that although awareness of the use of patent rights to protect their invention was low (67%), the utilization of patent was extremely very low (8%). In addition, over 75% of the respondents were convinced of the need of granting universities and research institutions statutory research exemptions. In their view, granting such exemptions will enhance the researchers’ abilities to verify the truthfulness and accuracy of patent claims, and be able to compare old and new technologies. The study therefore recommends that (i) the IP Unit in the relevant ministry needs to adopt a more proactive role by sensitising people, especially those whose activities may result in inventions, about their IP rights, how these rights can be protected, the advantages of protecting their rights to inventions through patents and the patent procedure. Information literature contained in leaflets and other types of flyers should be widely used; (ii) The Tertiary Education Board, which is the supervisory body for education in the country needs to formulate an IP policy which should guide all the tertiary institutions in the country; (iii) The existing legal framework on patent rights and research exemptions in Botswana need to be made more effective; (iv) The Government, tertiary institutions and industry must be compelled to allocate funds for research and innovation; (v) Financial incentives, possibly through a 50/50 sharing of royalties from patents should be introduced; and (vi) Academic institutions should device well-publicised schemes to recognise and reward innovative initiatives by staff.
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    Dans quelle mesure l'exemption de la recherche peut-elle promouvoir l'innovation ?
    (2010)
    Le cadre de vie offert aux populations en Afrique centrale en général et au Cameroun en particulier, les confronte au quotidien à une variété de sollicitations besoins qui pourraient bénéficier des résultats de la recherche. C’est le cas pour : l’insécurité alimentaire, les pertes après récoltes, la prévalence des maladies endémiques et émergentes telles que le Paludisme et le VIH/SIDA, les difficultés d’accès à l’habitat, à l’eau et à l’énergie, la dégradation de l’environnement, les pertes après récoltes, la redondance de la recherche etc.… Mais comment y parvenir si les chercheurs et les politiques n’exploitent pas suffisamment ou efficacement les différents outils qu’offre le système de propriété intellectuelle, dont notamment l’option d’une formulation élargie de l’exemption de la recherche conforme aux dispositions de l’article 30 de l’Accord sur les Adpic. En analysant les contours, la portée des conditions et les domaines de cette exemption, notre étude tend à accompagner les chercheurs et politiques des pays de l’Afrique centrale et du Cameroun en particulier, dans l’usage du système de propriété intellectuelle pour appuyer l’innovation pour le développement et l’amélioration des conditions de vie des populations.
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    Pharmaceutical innovation, incremental patenting and compulsory licensing
    (South Centre, Geneva, CH, 2011)
    The analysis suggests that local firms in developing countries are better supported in a framework where patent protection for minor incremental innovations is not allowed. The study also suggests that with the application of well-defined patentability standards, governments could avoid spending the political capital necessary to grant and sustain compulsory licenses. Patents over minor incremental developments (‘evergreening’ patents) may be used to exclude generic competition, blocking access to affordable drugs. If patent applications were correctly scrutinized, there would be no need to have recourse to such measures.