In this Statement, the authors take a position on the waiver of intellectual property (IP) protection currently being considered by the members of the World Trade Organisation. The waiver was initiated by India and South Africa as a measure to enable rapid access to affordable medical products...

The defensive protection of traditional knowledge (TK) is one of the IP law mechanisms envisaged to protect cultural heritage and guarantee the rights of indigenous and local communities. Through it, information on the prior existence of this knowledge is used to prevent the fulfillment of...

On 17 June 2022, after nearly one and a half years of intense debate concerning the proposal to waive IP protection in view of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization adopted a decision on the TRIPS Agreement. It has not waived any intellectual property...

Among the different cultural heritage assets, genetic resources (GR) and traditional knowledge associated to them (TK) have a technical character and enjoy legal protection in the international law. Due to these characteristics, measures of patent law have been often considered for their...