Enabling Innovation Policies
Innovation ecosystems are complex. They involve many actors, which must be motivated to invest in risky new ventures with no guarantee of success. They rest on a foundation of enabling policies in areas including intellectual property, trade, investment, rule of law, and education. A productive innovation ecosystem provides legal certainty and predictability for innovators. IP protection and enforcement frameworks are important in this regard. Patent rules should be business-model neutral and aimed at supporting innovation over the long-term. Trade secret protection, which can help innovators to manage valuable, confidential information, is particularly relevant for SMEs and individual inventors. Rules that enable public and private sector entities to share knowledge and jointly commercialize R&D can ensure that breakthroughs don’t sit on the shelf. Through Innovation Council, members weigh in on the range of policies that can advance innovation across sectors and regions.
Response to European Commission Intellectual property – New Framework for Standard-Essential Patents
This paper by Jonathan Barnett and other IP experts was released back in 2022 – but the analysis is still very relevant today. The authors unpack arguments that have been put forward for limiting what SEP owners can do with their patents, assessing such arguments based on available data, studies, and experience in the real economy. The authors endorse the current FRAND licensing framework, noting that it continues to work well to incentivize innovation and the broad dissemination globally, across sectors, of connectivity technologies. Highly relevant insights for policy initiatives like the EU SEP Regulation, and the forthcoming SEP work program at WIPO. Read more about their paper here.
Can Stem Cell Meat Save the Planet?
Singapore allows meat grown from stem cells in laboratories to be marketed and eaten by consumers. It is the first country in the world to approve stem cell–produced meat for public consumption, in line with efforts to reduce reliance on imported food.
Shiok Meats, an Innovation Council member, is a Singaporean company producing seafood made from stem cells. Its work is featured in this article by Der Spiegel.
Click here for full story
EPO Launches Clean-Energy Platform to Support Researchers
Ahead of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), the EPO launched a new Clean Energy platform designed to support researchers and decision-makers involved in the race for clean-energy technologies that contribute to the UN SDGs.
The platform provides an initial selection of some 60 ready-made smart patent information searches to help scientists, engineers and decision-makers find and build upon existing green tech solutions with greater ease.
Click here to read more.
AI and the Bio-Pharmaceutical Sector
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recently hosted discussions about the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and intellectual property (IP). Mr. Corey Salsberg, a globally recognized attorney in the fields of IP and innovation law and policy, and Vice President and Global Head of IP Affairs for Novartis, was invited to take part in the second panel featuring Stories from Innovators – A Real Life Business View on AI Innovation. This note is based on his remarks, which provide examples from Novartis’ R&D and other activities to illustrate how AI can be applied to enhance bio-pharma innovation, along with the related IP implications.
Click here to read more.
Diagnostics And The TRIPS Agreement
FIND, the global alliance for diagnostics, seeks to ensure equitable access to reliable diagnosis across the world. They connect patients, communities, health care providers, governments, global health agencies, decision makers, product developers, and the diagnostics industry to spur diagnostic innovation and make testing an integral part of sustainable, resilient health systems. From time to time, FIND publishes technical briefs and policy briefs on issues relevant to the diagnostics equity agenda.
Click here to read the full policy brief.
11th Asia Regulatory Conference
The 11th Asia Regulatory Conference was recently held from 17-21 October 2022 by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) and the Singapore Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (SAPI). The conference, which took the form of short topic specific webinars, covered ways in which the regulatory landscape could be improved, and what this means for patients, regulators, and industry. Some topics that were covered included regulatory agilities and why this is important to patients, harmonization of regulatory approval, the changing regulatory landscape of Biotherapeutics and Advanced Therapy Medical Products, the effectiveness of the ICH and the importance of delivery the same quality of regulatory standard to patients everywhere. There was a wide range of speakers lending their view including representatives from both AstraZeneca who spoke on the lessons learned throughout COVID-19 in regard to regulatory approval and Pfizer who spoke on their experience with Post Approval Change Management
Protocol (PACMP).
Click here to watch the full video. The AstraZeneca talk begins at 35:52.
Global Innovation Index 2022 – What is the future of innovation-driven growth?
WIPO has released the 2022 Global Innovation Index with Switzerland once again placing first, for a 12th year in a row. The United States has climbed to take second position and the United Kingdom has stayed in fourth, the same as in 2021. Even though there was an expectation for a decrease in R&D after the COVID-19 pandemic, this has not been the case for many of the large corporate companies, with there being an almost 10% increase in R&D in 2021, reaching a figure of over $900 billion in 2021. Some countries increased their R&D budget spending for 2021, such as Germany, while other such as Japan and the United States didn’t. Intellectual Property filling also continued to increase in 2021 with a rise of 15%. Data was also found that 26 countries are outperforming their development with innovation, including countries such as India and Indonesia.
The Global Innovation Index predicts two new innovation waves to come, contradicting those who believe innovation driven growth is going to stay at a low. The Digital Age innovation wave and the Deep Science innovation wave are predicted to be the next two biggest breakthroughs in innovation, but it is well accepted that these will take time. The Digital Age innovation wave would focus on automation and artificial intelligence, while the Deep Science innovation wave is thought to look at bio- and nanotechnologies which would revolutionise science.
Click here to read the full report.
Executive Order For Advancing Biotechnology And Biomanufacturing Innovation Signed By President Biden
On September 12, 2022, President Biden signed the Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy. The objective of the Executive Order is to “coordinate a whole-of-government approach to advance biotechnology and biomanufacturing towards innovative solutions in health, climate change, energy, food security, agriculture, supply chain resilience, and national and economic security.” The work undertaken pursuant to the Executive Order is referred to as the National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative (NBBI).
Read the full story here.
Compilation of WIPO Case Studies on IP Management by Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
The WIPO Secretariat has compiled a selection of case studies and success stories obtained from various areas of WIPO, that showcase the use of IP rights by Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). They provide a comprehensive overview on how IP is used by entrepreneurs, inventors and creators, to add value to their products, support business growth, create employment and promote economic development.
These stories will be presented from the 17th to the 22nd of October 2022 during the Twenty-Ninth Session of the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP).