International Economic Law and Policy Blog

Sign in Subscribe

Topic

Trade and Intellectual Property

23 posts

Guest Post: China – Enforcement of IP Rights: Navigating Different Conceptions of Territoriality in International Intellectual Property Law

This is a guest post from Emmanuel Kolawole Oke, Senior Lecturer at Edinburgh Law School What does it mean to ‘give effect to’ the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement? That is the key question at the centre of the dispute between the EU and China at the WTO regarding anti-suit

Trump Pushes Big Pharma on Controlling U.S. Prices

Following up on a previous post of mine, let's check in on the Trump administration's efforts to lower drug prices in the U.S. market. A White House fact sheet from last week explains that "Trump sent letters to leading pharmaceutical manufacturers outlining the steps

Can the Trump Administration's Price Control Plan Bring U.S. Pharmaceutical Prices Down?

In recent months, the Trump administration has undertaken some efforts to lower U.S. drug prices. I'm skeptical that their approach will work, but nevertheless it involves a range of issues that interact in interesting ways. With the caveat that I'm not really an expert on

Guest Post: Are the revisions to the EU’s ‘Bolar’ system compatible with TRIPS?

This is a guest post from Maarten Meulenbelt, Chris Boyle, Lauren Shapiro, Maryanne Kamau, and Alix Vermulst of Sidley Austin. The full article on which the post is based is available here. In the EU, much has been written about the so-called “Pharma Review” proposals, published by the European Commission

Battle of the Gruyeres

Back in January 2022, I wrote about a U.S. federal court ruling that Gruyere is a generic cheese term, which meant that, despite the protests of the Swiss cheese industry, U.S. producers could make Gruyere cheese and put the word "Gruyere" on the product label in

U.S. Court Rules that "Gruyere" Is a Generic Term

Periodically, I like to start fights with Europeans on Twitter about geographical indications. It's not a perfect breakdown by country/continent, but it mostly lines up as a "new world" vs. "old world" fight. Recently I started a good one based on a U.

The ITC's USMCA Report: The IP Section

This is from the IP section of the ITC's USMCA report (starts on p. 213): Modeling of Changes to Key IPR Provisions The Commission’s quantitative assessment of the effects of key IPR changes in USMCA identifies the statistical relationships between trade in certain IPR-intensive manufacturing sectors and

Does CETA Violate WTO Obligations? How About NAFTA Chapter 11?

This is from the U.S. dairy industry: The text of the European Union-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) released at the end of last week contains provisions on geographical indications (GIs) and reallocates a portion of the World Trade Organization tariff rate quota for cheese to the EU.

Soaring Prices and Access to Vaccines: A New Mission for WTO TRIPS flexibilities?

A must-read article that appeared in the New York Times a couple of days ago nyti.ms/1t8ugtz details the soaring cost of vaccines and the potentially disastrous public health consequences (some of which are already being felt). This seems an ideal case for compulsory licensing. I would note that

Why Can't We Discriminate in Relation to Patents Based on the Field of Technology?

Article 27.1 of the TRIPS Agreement says: "patents shall be available and patent rights enjoyable without discrimination as to the ... the field of technology." The law is pretty clear, and doesn't leave much wiggle room. But why is that the rule? Why shouldn't