The key to supporting science innovation is funding and shaping it at its earliest stages, while innovative ventures are still housed within universities — and even before the ventures are founded.
The Coalition planned to tax company income from patents at 17% instead of 30%. While it would have lifted the number of patents, there’s little to suggest it would have lifted productivity.
By implementing paywalls, making exclusive content deals and incorporating ad tech, big media companies have reshaped what was once an entirely free and open ecosystem.
Trademarking a shape of a product, or proving that a competitor is passing off their product as your own, is not easy. A high-profile settlement, though, is marketing gold.
The new variant is a warning: unless we take urgent action to correct global vaccine inequities, we risk the emergence of further variants, some of which may evade vaccines.
Potential benefits of human genome editing include new ways to diagnose, treat and prevent genetic disorders. But there’s a significant gap in regulation.
Relying on donor funding means that the funder ultimately determines the health priorities. This is one reason why many programmes in Africa focus on a single disease such as HIV.
The pharmaceutical industry overall has been deeply opposed to waiving COVID-19 vaccine patents, but a historian of the industry explains that drug companies once opposed patents altogether.
Small and medium-sized businesses play an important role in economic growth and development but are hamstrung by their lack of adequate resources to market their goods and services.
Lowering the tax rates on profits from patents registered in Australia is unlikely to increase local research and development. But it will be a gift for multinationals.
Despite some public virtue signalling, the Canadian government is not doing all it can to improve global access to COVID-19 vaccines. Canada has yet to announce its position on the WTO patent waiver.
Professor of Intellectual Property and Innovation Law; Director Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Managament (CIPPM), Bournemouth University, Bournemouth University