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The World Trade Organization chief called on Wednesday (May 5) for international agreement on how to ensure more equal access to COVID-19 vaccines, amid an ongoing standoff over a proposed patent waiver for the jabs. "The way the WTO handles this matter is critical," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told country representatives taking part a meeting of the WTO general council, the organisation's main decision-making body. "We need to have a sense of urgency on how we approach this issue of response to COVID-19 because the world is watching," she said, describing equitable access to the tools to fight the pandemic as the...

A high-stakes fight over drug companies’ response to the coronavirus pandemic has split the Biden administration, with activists and progressives urging the White House to back an international petition to waive the companies’ patents — and some senior officials privately signaling they’re open to the idea. The debate has reignited decades-old tensions in global health, pitting such influential figures as Pope Francis, who backs the patent-waiver proposal, against philanthropist Bill Gates, who’s opposed. The proposal was discussed last week by Anthony S. Fauci, a top coronavirus adviser to President Biden, and Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, who spoke about...

SOURCE — LEW ROCKWELL Latent Deaths Predicted Among The Elderly After Immunization With mRNA Vaccine Dr. Dolores Cahill, professor of molecular genetics, School of Medicine at University College Dublin, and chairwoman of Irish Freedom Party, Dolores Cahill PhD speaking about mRNA vaccines Partial Transcript Then the real adverse events will happen, against whatever is the real mRNA in the vaccines, and when the person vaccinated comes across (this coronavirus) sometime later …. what happened in the animal studies, 20% or 50% or 100% of the animals died. Among people over 80, maybe about 2.5% will experience severe side effects, adverse...

The newest federal lab gives the CIA and its officers the unprecedented ability to make money off inventions that come from within the agency. America’s most famous spy agency has a major competitor it can’t quite seem to beat: Silicon Valley. The CIA has long been a place cutting-edge technology is researched, developed, and realized—and it wants to lead in fields like artificial intelligence and biotechnology. However, recruiting and retaining the talent capable of building these tools is a challenge on many levels, especially since a spy agency can’t match Silicon Valley salaries, reputations, and patents. The agency’s solution is...

"Google was one of the three largest bundlers of contributions to President Obama. The year after the America Invents Act was passed, Google contributions were almost $1 million. Google spent $18 million on lobbyists. What did Google get for its money? A new, weaker patent system that allows challenges to patents outside of court, without a jury, without presumption of validity, using a low standard of proof. Google and friends killed the presumption that makes patents valuable. The expectations of patent owners that their rights would be enforceable against infringers.... "As the U.S. weakens its patent system, other countries are...

Defendant Stole Google’s Confidential Information on Self-Driving Car Technology SAN FRANCISCO – Anthony Scott Levandowski pleaded guilty and was sentenced today to 18 months in prison for trade secret theft related to Google’s self-driving car program, announced United States Attorney David L. Anderson and John F. Bennett, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Levandowski was also ordered to pay a $95,000 fine and $756,499.22 in restitution. As part of a plea agreement, Levandowski, 40, of Marin County, pleaded guilty to one of the 33 counts of trade secrets theft originally filed against him in 2019.  In...

Late last month the CEOs of four of the most powerful tech companies in the world — Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Alphabet, which owns Google — testified before the House Judiciary Committee, which has spent a year investigating their companies’ alleged anti-competitive and monopolistic practices. That’s quite a fall for Big Tech, which just a decade ago was viewed by Congress as an unalloyed social good. With every aspect of Big Tech’s behavior now under review, perhaps it’s also a good time to revisit its “patent troll” narrative. This is the notion, unlikely on the face of it, that somehow...

In the wake of COVID0-19’s economic destruction, policymakers face the challenging task of kickstarting the economy and re-opening the country for business. Unemployment rates have spiked, reaching a staggering 14.7 million in April. Three out of four U.S. small businesses have applied for government assistance—82 percent of which are manufacturers. A successful relaunch must include efforts to eliminate unnecessary frictions to economic activity, such as outdated regulations. Legal threats to economic growth must also be avoided. Fortunately, that is exactly what happened when the Supreme Court decided Thryv, Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies last month. While the question before the court turned on...

Our Nation’s history is defined by discovery, ingenuity, and innovation. Americans are known for their resourcefulness and ability to find solutions to a wide range of challenges, including the development of technologies that advance our security, health, and prosperity. This resourcefulness has been a driving force of economic growth and human development since the founding of our Nation, and our future depends on the continued protection of our intellectual property. On World Intellectual Property Day, we renew our resolve to protect and secure the works and innovations of American artists, inventors, and other creators who continually push the boundaries of...

Right now, our nation is experiencing a time of deep crisis. It is very important for the federal government to preserve the motivation for American entrepreneurs to create the best new treatment for the coronavirus.  One way to do so is for the federal government to protect intellectual property from theft. The United States is constantly fighting with China over the theft of intellectual property.  It is one of the major sticking points in negotiations between the U.S. and China for a new comprehensive trade deal, because China is known to steal the intellectual inventions of American citizens.  The Trump...

As the coronavirus threat grows, we are all hoping to limit its spread, or even better, invent a vaccine. Yet, at the very same time we need new treatments some people are proposing to abandon decades of proven success in innovation policy. Fortunately, there is widespread support and mounting evidence in favor of keeping the pro-innovation approach that has always defined the American spirit. The American bio-pharmaceutical industry leads the world in innovation. Americans have access to newer treatments, sooner. And that's not all. A recent report highlighted that sector of our economy supports more than 4 million American. A...

One of Donald Trump's more memorable promises on the campaign trail was to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Polls show this issue remains popular with Americans, especially lower-income families, who are worried about high drug prices. Of course, the entire concept of drug prices' being "too high" is subjective. Drugs are too expensive ... compared with what? Certainly not compared with not having the drugs available at all. If you suffer from the intense pain of migraine headaches or have been diagnosed with lung cancer, how much would you pay for a drug to help you? I have friends...

Linux was a 'cancer' but Microsoft is now defending it IBM, Microsoft and the Linux Foundation have partnered with the Open Invention Network (OIN), a company formed to protect Linux from patent threats, to take on "Patent Assertion Entities", also known as patent trolls.Specifically, the group will help fund the Open Source Zone of Unified Patents, an organisation which provides legal services to deter "unsubstantiated or invalid patent assertions".The move had already been flagged at the Open Source Summit in Lyon last month, but the identity of the participating companies was not then known. OIN CEO Keith Bergelt spoke to...

Full title: FBI has 1,000 investigations into Chinese intellectual property theft, director Christopher Wray says, calling China the most severe counter-intelligence threat to US -- Arrests of people involved in Chinese operations to steal US corporate secrets have risen sharply in recent years Washington says problem is exacerbated by ‘Thousand Talents’ programme, which rewards Chinese professionals overseas who bring technology back to China -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation has nearly 1,000 investigations open into economic espionage and attempted intellectual property theft, nearly all of them leading back to China, FBI director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday. “There is no...

This is a story about patents, but more importantly, it’s a story about how the United States has become a modern-day version of the Banana Republic. The term “Banana Republic” was coined by American author O. Henry in 1904 in reference to Honduras which came under extraordinary influence by multinational American fruit corporations. Banana Republics are societies characterized by their starkly stratified social classes and a ruling-class plutocracy composed of the business, political and military elites. The Elites rule over a servile government that abets and supports, for “contributions,” kickbacks and bribes, the exploitation of the rest of society. Instead...

For trial lawyers, Big Pharma, and assorted other profiteers off American misery, the Supreme Court case Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank is like holy water thrown in the face of a vampire. They cannot abide exposure to it and will shrink away into the darkness with a variety of imprecations and hissing sounds. Also like vampires, the anti-Alice crowd constantly seeks to be invited into the house to rid themselves of this nuisance. Well, actually, in the anti-Alice case, it’s both the House and Senate. Which brings me to the case of Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.),...

Imagine the following scenario: You spend your life slaving away at building some ingenious new device in your garage. After years of painstaking work, testing, and sleepless nights, you finally produce your device, patent it, and take it to market. However, before you can take it to market, someone serves you with a lawsuit.

“Hans Sauer of BIO said that it is easy to argue—after the heavy lifting of discovery and development has been done and a product has made it to market—that it should not be patented in the public interest. ‘As if innovative products fell from the sky and ought to go directly into the public domain…. It is right to encourage complaints about problems, but we must do so with an appreciation of the system’s longer-term benefits for society.’” Wednesday’s Senate hearing on patent eligibility reform, which began more than 30 minutes late due to votes on the floor, opened with...

“I’ve spent 22 years on the Federal Circuit and nine years since dealing with patent cases and I cannot predict [under the current law] in a given case whether eligibility will be found or not found. If I can’t do it, how can bankers, venture capitalists [and] business executives make reliable predictions and sensible decisions?” – Judge Paul Michel The first of three scheduled hearings in which the Senate IP Subcommittee will hear testimony from a total of 45 witnesses on the subject of patent eligibility law raised many questions. While some read the proposed draft bill released by Congress...

“I asked to participate in the 101 Roundtable and was denied access based of the fact that I am ‘media.’ Yet, the tech giants that are rejecting reform are allowed to participate and still engage in a carefully coordinated public relations campaign.” On June 19, it will be five years since the United States Supreme Court issued a decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, 134 S.Ct. 2347 (2014), which significantly changed the way courts and patent examiners evaluated patent eligibility of computer implemented innovation in the United States. While the Supreme Court ostensibly extended the patent eligibility analysis applied...