Leading up to the WTO Ministerial Conference in early December, I am focusing on the issue of the TRIPS waiver and the politics of intellectual property that have crystallised around it, at the international, national and multi-actor levels. I am grateful for the convenors of these events to give me the opportunity to exchange thoughts about the problems and ways forward on structural deficiencies of transnational and national intellectual property regimes with very experienced colleagues and experts in the field of IP and access to knowledge and medicines .
September 2021: I had the honour of participating in the panel discussion on the ‘The Future of the TRIPS Agreement Post Covid-19′ organised by the intergovernmental organisation, South Centre, at the WTO Public Forum, together with Dr. Yuanqiong Hu, MSF Access Campaign, Geneva, Dr. Dean Baker, Center for Economic Policy and Research, Washington DC, and Dr. Carlos M. Correa, Executive Director of the South Centre. The panel discussion was moderated by Dr. Viviana Muñoz-Tellez, Coordinator of the Health, Intellectual Property and Biodiversity Programme of the South Centre. My intervention stressed the need for technology transfer as part of TRIPS’ promise.
October 2021: I participated in a panel organised by the civil society organisation, Health Justice Intiative, and hosted by the Mandela Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, on ‘The Way Forward on and Beyond the TRIPS Waiver Proposal’, together with Mr. Tahir Amin, iMAK Initative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge, Ms. Sangeeta Shashikant, Third World Network, Dr. Carlos Correa, Executive Director of the South Centre, Dr. Alexander Beyleveld, Mandela Institute. We were moderated by Ms. Fatima Hassan, the Founder of the Health Justice Initative. My talk focused on the role and responsibility of IP scholarship as they have been acutely crystallised in this pandemic.
November 2021: I will present at George Mason University’s Global Affairs Colloquium series on vaccine inequity and IP law, almost a year on since vaccine started being rolled out. I look forward to bringing together the impressions and lessons learned since the beginning of the pandemic in the politics of intellectual property law.
November 2021: Returning to my book project, which has evolved over the last one and half years, on patent value and valuation, I look forward to speaking at the Chair of Science Studies Colloquium at the University of Lucerne. The topic of the talk will be ‘Patents as socio-cultural artefacts: from killer patents to gimmicks’.
Hyo Yoon Kang 