IP financing, or the use of IP assets (trade marks, design rights, patents and copyright) to gain access to credit, is gaining increasing attention in IP circles. more »

With the cost of healthcare provision spiraling, governments and payers across the seven major markets are applying cost-cutting measures, putting even greater pressure on pharmaceutical companies. In the UK, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence recently rejected four new kidney cancer therapies on the basis of cost effectiveness, effectively denying patients access to these novel drugs. more »

By Philip Mendes, Partner, Innovation Law, Brisbane

Intellectual Property owners submit their intellectual property (“IP”) to due diligence for a number of reasons. Amongst them are:  more »

By Norbert Rau, Raucon

How often have you received an interesting business opportunity offer from a person or company totally unknown to you, and how often did you think that it would be easier to assess the offer if you would know the person?  more »

by Matthew Royle, Taylor Wessing

Rwanda has recently become the first country to make use of the new compulsory licensing provisions that are proposed to form Article 31bis of TRIPs more »

by Tim Worden, Taylor Wessing

In the case of Lymington Marina Ltd v Macnamara and others,1 the Court of Appeal examined the scope of a clause in a licence allowing a licensor to refuse to approve a proposed sub-licensee. The licence in question granted the licensee a right to berth a yacht in the licensor’s marina. more »

Source: Duncan Bucknell, IP Thinktank

“Orphan IP” is intellectual property which has not been commercialised. Usually relating to patents and know-how (confidential information) in the technology transfer area, it has been the subject of many and varied ‘revolutionary’ suggestions. more »

With pharma struggling to maintain its pipelines and portfolios with products developed in-house, companies are increasingly turning to licensing to bolster profits.  more »

By Jane Plomley and Farheena Rasheed more »

By Gareth Williams, Marks & Clark

Marks & Clerk’s annual biotechnology reports have traditionally taken a sector focus, in order to provide an in-depth view of how biotech is developing technologically. This year, the report took a more strategic look at patenting activity in the biotechnology arena, and discovered a maturing approach to commercialising and protecting intellectual property.  more »