Author name: Swaraj Paul Barooah

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Progress(?) in International Effort to Tackle Pandemics

/ By / Patent

The  ‘Open Ended Working Group” on Pandemic Influenza Preparedness recently completed its 2nd meeting and has resulted in some breakthroughs in the long standing effort by nations to prepare a framework for tackling pandemics, especially for poorer countries which do not have the capacity to develop or receive vaccinations. As usual, there is a developing – developed country divide on certain issues. [William New of IP Watch has an interview with a key negotiator of these meetings here.] The issue which they’ve […]

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NBA and MoEF’s (non)working un-CAGed

/ By / Biological Diversity

The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), established for the regulation, conservation and sustainable use of natural resources has recently come under the scanner for its failure in notifying important regulations dealing with access to biodiversity, transfer of results of research and intellectual property rights, even though it was set up back in 2003. The castigating report, was brought out by the Comptroller of Auditor General (CAG) as part of its first audit report of the MoEF. (The NBA is under the administrative

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SpicyIP Tidbit: NGOs set up blog for FTA’s effects on Access to Medicine

/ By / Uncategorized

Several NGOs have been protesting the free-trade agreements that are being negotiated due to the detrimental effect that these multilateral and bilateral agreements would have on access to medicines. We too have covered the developments on the India – EU FTA in several posts here.  Recently, DNP+ and MSF Access Campaign India have set up a blog for more active discussion on these issues. “The blog was established to gather information like documents, drafts of agreement’s, news, pictures, videos, press releases

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SpicyIP Tidbit: ACTA Final Text released

/ By / Uncategorized

Thanks to Michael Geist’s tweets and IPKat’s quick follow up, we have news that the final text of the controversial ACTA has just been released, though it’s stated as ‘Subject to Legal Review’.The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia has helpfully posted a copy of the text here. This post is just to announce it’s release so that our readers too can go over it, before we go over it in more detail.

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A round up of international events

/ By / Biological Diversity

Access and Benefit Sharing Protocol adopted at Nagoya.  Readers may remember our post recently on the COP 10 of the Convention of Bio-Diversity that was held at Nagoya, Japan. 18 years of negotiation on the treaty finally concluded with the adoption of the Access and Benefit Sharing Protocol, (Nagoya Protocol) on the 30th of October, 2010. The protocol, as the name suggests, has the aim of preventing misappropriation of genetic resources of countries, as well as providing equitable benefit sharing

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Upcoming CBD meet: Sufficient to narrow the gap?

/ By / Biological Diversity

It’s been nearly 2 decades since the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was adopted in the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and this year, which also happens to be the International Year of Biodiversity, marks the 10th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP). It will take place from 18th – 29th October, 2010 at Nagoya, Japan. The item of primary importance on the agenda at COP 10 is that of creating international protocol on Access and Benefit

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Media goof up over India-EU ‘settlement’ ?

/ By / Uncategorized

A few posts ago, Prashant had blogged about media reports of a settlement being finally reached in the long-standing India-EU dispute over in-transit drug seizures. Apparently the EU had agreed to amend its laws so that goods in transit could no longer be seized for patent infringement. However, there are a few things a little off about these reports it seems! Firstly, government officials on both sides, Indian as well as EU have apparently expressed surprise at these media reports

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Student groups ask for reconsideration of TRIPS-plus provisions of EU-India FTA

/ By / Uncategorized

Earlier yesterday, several student organisations including the European section of International Students Access to Medicines Organisation as well as the Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, amongst others, sent a letter to the EU Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht asking for a reconsideration of the EU-India free trade agreement that is currently being drafted. (We have previously written on this agreement here). Incidentally, we are also currently in the week of international action against EU-India FTA – (Oct 4th – Oct 9th)

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The problem with the "access to medicine" debate

/ By / Uncategorized

There is, and has rightly been a long and drawn out debate on the price barriers faced by poorer consumers. And for good reason too.  Access to medicines is a phrase that’s come to be thrown around quite often, almost driving it into rhetoric – with people not stopping anymore to think about what it represents. It has come to be used any time there is talk of high priced medicines. And, although it’s most commonly associated with AIDS medicines,

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SpicyIP Tidbit: New Guide on Searching for Medicine Patents

/ By / Patent

Tahir Amin (Co-founder of I-MAK) on behalf of the World Health Organization (South-East Asia and Western Pacific Regions) has written a very useful step-by-step guide on searching for patents on medicines. Given that procuring generic medicines is no longer free from IP considerations, this guide could be especially useful in developing countries. The guide is also an attempt at filling the void on material on this subject. The guide, titled “How to Conduct Patent Searches for Medicines” introduces beginners to

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