Because the production costs of these medical devices and pharmaceuticals are so high, millions of people around the world are unable to obtain necessary healthcare. For example, as of 2014, close to seventy percent of all cardiac pacemaker sales occurred in the United States and Europe, while several countries in Africa and Asia have absolutely no access to pacemakers. In order to respond to this problem, research scientists have begun developing low-cost medical technologies and using intellectual property rights to give people in developing countries access to adequate healthcare.
After a decade of disputes and lobbying, Ukraine has finally joined the countries with special IP courts or patent courts, namely the United Kingdom, the United States, China, Brazil, Germany, Sweden, Japan, Chile, France, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Spain and others… The reform provides for establishing the High Court on Intellectual Property Issues by autumn 2017 as a court of the first instance for copyright, trademark and patent disputes. Judicial decisions will be reviewed in the court of appeal within the chamber of the Supreme Court of Ukraine.
The WIPO Assemblies, which met from October 1-9, 2012, took stock of the Organization’s substantive work over the last year, and provided direction for the future work program. At the closing of the Assemblies, WIPO Director General Francis Gurry welcomed the “extremely constructive engagement of member states” in the work of the Organization as demonstrated in the decisions taken by the Assemblies. He underlined the progress made by member states in setting timetables for concluding negotiations on international instruments on access to copyrighted work by the visually impaired, design law and intellectual property and genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore.