Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18975
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: Electronic Source
Rius J
Civil Society comments on USPTO humanitarian priority review voucher proposal
Knowledge Ecology International 2010 Nov 22
http://keionline.org/node/1024
Full text:
On November 19, 2010, Knowledge Ecology International, Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors without Borders, Oxfam America and Public Citizen answered a Request for Comments from the US Department of Commerce on a proposal to “Incentivize Humanitarian Technologies and Licensing Through the Intellectual Property System”.
In a September 20, 2010 Federal Register Notice, the USPTO announced the US Government is considering creating a new incentive mechanism in the form of a pilot program to grant priority review vouchers for technologies and licensing behavior that address humanitarian needs. The vouchers would enable applicants to obtain an accelerated ex-parte re-Âexamination of any patent they own, or could be transferred on the open market
The joint Comments are available here and include nine main recommendation. The USPTO pilot should:
• Ensure policy coherence with U.S. global commitments on public health, innovation and intellectual property.
• Ensure that the incentive mechanism is designed to motivate innovation and dissemination of technologies responding to a wide range of diseases and health concerns.
• Ensure that the program provides significant incentives, potentially by limiting the number of vouchers provided, as with a prize.
• Ensure an effective accessibility and affordability strategy.
• Favor humanitarian open licensing and technology transfer practices that include a wide geographical scope, including all developing countries.
• Institute a system to meaningfully ascertain the humanitarian value of the technology and dissemination mechanisms.
• Ensure that the mechanism does not incentivize unnecessary patenting.
• Prevent abuses of a system established under the voucher program.
• Ensure continued transparency.
