Posts Tagged: "Brian Pomper"

IPW Webinar: Saving the World With Patents: Is the TRIPS Waiver Helping or Hurting?

Innovation is to thank for many of the medicines, treatments, and technologies that help save lives and save the world on a daily basis. From insulin to water treatment, there are innovations everywhere that help make the world a better place. This last year has certainly been one that no one could have seen coming. Intellectual property has played an…

Innovation Alliance Urges Biden Administration to Support Patent Rights

On January 11, Brian Pomper, Executive Director of the Innovation Alliance, sent a letter to President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris urging support for strong patent rights and outlining Innovation Alliance’s recommendations with respect to the U.S. patent system and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The letter emphasized the importance of a strong patent system that incentivizes technological advancement in order to effectively compete with China and explained that the current system is in distress and strong leadership is needed.  

A Step Forward for the STRONGER Patents Act

The bipartisan STRONGER Patents Act of 2019 took an important step forward last week, as the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property held a hearing on the proposed legislation. Senators Tillis and Coons, the Subcommittee’s Chairman and Ranking Member, should be commended for holding the hearing and focusing attention on our patent system’s role in promoting American innovation and job creation. As several of the hearing witnesses made clear in their testimony, our patent system has been dangerously weakened in recent years through a series of judicial, legislative, and administrative changes. These changes have undermined patent rights and made it difficult for inventors to protect their innovations from infringement. Meanwhile, our foreign competitors, including China and Europe, have strengthened their patent rights. This has put us at a competitive disadvantage and helped contribute to a trend of both innovation and venture capital increasingly moving overseas. For example, the U.S. share of global venture capital fell from 66% in 2010 to 40% in 2018, while China’s share increased from 12% to 38% in the same time period. And despite more than a decade of economic growth following the Great Recession of 2007-2009, startup formation has failed to return to its pre-recession levels.

U.S. Patent System Jumps to Tie for Second Place in International IP Index

On February 7, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) released the latest version of its International IP Index assessing the intellectual property environments in 50 world economies. Once again, the United States achieved the top overall ranking as the strongest intellectual property regime in the world. The country’s improved ranking in patent rights—moving from its twelfth-place ranking in 2018 to a tie for second place this year—is particularly notable. However, the United States does find itself tied with 10 other countries for that second-place ranking in patent rights and is just as close to being tied with thirteenth-place Italy as it is to being tied with first-place Singapore.

Innovators and Content Creators Urge USTR Lighthizer to Fight for Strong IP in NAFTA Negotiations

ACTION for Trade asks Lighthizer to consider advocating for strong IP protections and robust enforcement to benefit a diverse group of industries, including digital content producers and distributors, biopharmaceutical firms and software developers… Along with strong patent policy, ACTION for Trade calls for the establishment of regulatory data protection (RDP) provisions which are consistent with U.S. law, especially where medical innovations are concerned. The letter to USTR Lighthizer notes that U.S. law recognizes a 12-year period of RDP for biologic treatments and a 5-year period of RDP for small molecule treatments. Such provisions would allow the original innovators of novel medicines to submit data on the safety and efficacy of medicines while shielding that data from others who might produce generics based on the data.