NGOs, Intellectual Property Rights and Multilateral Institutions

Technology and Law

“…236 Commission on Intellectual Property Rights (2002), p 167. The important role to be played by NGOs is considered in Matthews (2006). …”

Quality and quantity: Can we have both within the European patent system?

“…8 Evidence from the US semiconductor industry, which shows that firms do not rely heavily on patents to appropriate returns, is at odds with a dramatic rise in patenting in this sector since the mid-1980s-one account is a strengthening of patent laws. 9 Thus, we might explain a significant proportion of the explosion in patenting by a need of private players to engage in defence practices as a sort of insurance against possible legal actions from other companies. To this end, the accumulation of sufficient patent thickets, increases in defensive publishing 10 and so on are not about a general market-led drive to innovate more than before (despite headline figures).…”

“…europa.eu/innovation-smes/src/cis.htm). 9 The subsequent spawning of "patent portfolio races" among capital-intensive firms also facilitated entry by specialized design firms. It seems that firms in such industries take more patents than felt necessary simply to protect them from imitation, and it also appears that this tendency is getting stronger.…”

“…Besides requiring a solid assessment of the novelty 27 Examples include the Center for International Environmental Law, CPTech, the International Centre for Sustainable Trade and Development and Médecins Sans Frontières. See Matthews [9]. 28 As a result of his notable review in the 1950s, Machlup decided, just about, that he could not bring himself to abolish the US patent system given that it existed (though significantly, he would never recommend introducing it afresh).…”

The World Trade Organisation

“…NGOs such as the Consumer Project on Technology (CPTech) and Health Action International (HAI) got first involved in these issues in the mid 1990s, and were soon joined by an array of other NGOs including, most importantly, two heavyweight, nonpartisan international NGOs, the Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) and Oxfam (Sell and Prakash 2004;Matthews 2006). Like business actors had linked IP protection to the advancement of free trade before them, this NGOs network linked strong IP protection for pharmaceuticals with restricted access to HIV/AIDS medicines (and pharmaceuticals more generally) and unnecessary loss of human life and health.…”