Journal of IP in Practice

Call to Action Industry Article: Start-up IP in Academic Private Sector Partnerships - Who Owns it Really?

Kristine Tkachenko — 2025-01-20

Covid Crisis & Patent Waiver – A Saga

Shilpi Mehta Nanda — 2025-01-20

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly been the biggest calamity in recent times. The pandemic put to test not only the global supply chain and infrastructure but also the national and international disaster-management capacities. These challenging times compelled the world to tackle the problem from a global perspective.

Ergo, with several joint efforts, the countries were able to collaborate, construct and finally implement an international decision with respect to intellectual property rights, which enabled the world to address the crisis as one.

In this article, the authors aim to discuss the proposals for intellectual property (IP) / patent waiver and the nuances of WTO’s Ministerial Decision. The authors also highlight the decision’s effectiveness in addressing the issue of the accessibility of resources to combat the dreadful pandemic.

OECD BEPS from an IP Management Perspective

Donal O’Connell — 2025-01-20

OECD BEPS has been described as “the most significant re-write of international tax rules in a century”. The essence of OECD BEPS is the switch away from a focus on the legal ownership of the intangible assets (like patents, trademarks, trade secrets, etc.) within a corporate group to a focus on the economic ownership and usage of these intangible assets by the group members. This switch I suggest will have a major impact on IP management and the associated IP policies, IP processes, IP systems, IP data, IP governance, etc. within organizations. These OECD BEPS guidelines are not just about tax, they can be seen as an IP management handbook, dictating how companies should behave when managing their intangible assets.

AI and Artists: Navigating Ethics, Regulation, and the Impact of AI on Artistic Practice

Reema Selhi — 2025-01-20

Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have captured public interest, especially with the advent of generative AI technologies like ChatGPT and Dall-E. These tools, which create text, images, and videos rapidly and often for free, promise transformative impacts on society, economy, and culture. However, for artists, generative AI raises significant practical, ethical, and philosophical questions. A 2023 survey by DACS revealed artists’ concerns about AI’s impact on their work, data privacy, and the spread of misinformation. While some see AI as a positive tool, many demand safeguards and regulations, emphasising the need for consent and compensation when AI uses their work.

Expanding Drug Indications: Strategic Lifecycle Management vs. Evergreening in SGLT2 Inhibitors

Kazuhisa Shimmura — 2025-01-20

In the rapidly evolving pharmaceutical industry, Lifecycle Management (LCM) strategies are critical for maximizing the profitability and extending the market life of drugs. This study investigates the strategic importance of expanding indications for sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors before the expiration of their foundational patents. By analyzing these pre-expiration strategies, the balance between genuine innovation and strategic evergreening is addressed. The analysis covers the legal, regulatory, and clinical dimensions of indication expansions across the US, EU, and Japan, contrasting with the traditional focus on LCM strategies post-patent expiration.

Copyright and Generative AI

Thomas Balch — 2025-01-20

This is an opinion piece looking at the UK legal copyright framework, human creativity, generative artificial intelligence, and if you need to get permission from the creators or owners of on-line content such as writing, photos, music and film to scrape their content to build AI systems. There is huge concern in the UK’s economically vital and “soft power” driving creative industries, especially when the AI output competes directly with the very content that is used to make the generative AI tool work in the first place. There are essentially two opposing views and this article presents one side.