The petition by South Africa and India at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to waive most of the protections in the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement was all but dead. It failed in October, December, January, March, and May. Then, after the Biden Administration expressed in the most neutral terms is was “considering” and “discussing” the proposal, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai yesterday announced U.S. support for text-based negotiations that “will take some time.” IP rights are not the barrier to rapid production of vaccines advocates think they are, the waiver would cause more harm than possible good. The WTO would do much better to discuss removing obstacles to the trade of COVID-19 related items than removing intellectual property rights. There are 191 trade restriction measures on COVID-19 related supplies.
Patent
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- Patent Filings Roundup: Trio of Actions Accuse IP Investments of Coordinated Campaign with Intellectual Ventures Backend; Judge Albright Cancels One of 141 WSOU-Asserted Patents; New Magnetar Entity Surfaces
- New Tillis-Leahy Bills to Boost Innovation: The Good, the Bad and the Nonsense
- Where Have All of the Ex Parte Appeals Gone?
- A Kinder, Gentler ‘Death Squad’: Ten Years in, Despite Some Reforms, the USPTO is Still Killing U.S. Patents
Recent Posts
- Looming Leahy Bill Would End Fintiv Practice at PTAB
- Patent Filings Roundup: Trio of Actions Accuse IP Investments of Coordinated Campaign with Intellectual Ventures Backend; Judge Albright Cancels One of 141 WSOU-Asserted Patents; New Magnetar Entity Surfaces
- International: WIPO Reports Increasing Prevalence of Alternative Dispute Resolution for Business-to-Business Copyright Disputes
- New Tillis-Leahy Bills to Boost Innovation: The Good, the Bad and the Nonsense
- Where Have All of the Ex Parte Appeals Gone?