Posts Tagged: "BBC"

Mainstream Media Defends Patents? BBC Interview Indicates IP Talking Points on COVID Crisis May Be Reaching a Broader Audience

I happened to be listening to NPR yesterday morning, and caught an interview on BBC Newshour between the BBC’s Razia Iqbal and a representative of the African Union, Dr. Ayoade Olatunbosun-Alakija, who is also co-chair of the African Union COVID-19 Africa Vaccine Delivery Alliance. The discussion was somewhat unique in that the BBC host was at several points defending patent rights and pushing her guest to explain precisely how patents are the problem with respect to the undeniable crisis of insufficient vaccine access in the world’s poorest countries. An excerpted and slightly edited transcript of the interview follows

US Inventor sets patents on fire as part of PTAB protest at USPTO

Despite going on with the protest after the USPTO denied a use permit application for the event, a source from the event reports that all planned aspects of the protest, including the burning of patents in clear view of the USPTO, occurred without anyone going to jail… Inventors went to the front steps of the USPTO and lit their patents on fire. According to Landreneau, a total of six patents were burnt in this manner.