This article is republished with permission from IP Watch
By William New
Revised EPO Patent For Conventional Broccoli Has Public Interest Ramifications
To patent or not to patent, the great broccoli question
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A patent for a conventionally bred form of the common household vegetable broccoli appears to be on its way to acceptance by the European Patent Office following a change to the patent by the company filing it, according to sources. The decision not to revoke the patent, which has been the subject of protests and now calls for action in national courts, could clear the way for hundreds of other vegetable patents to follow, a source said.
In a rather legal format, the EPO announced on 25 October that an oral hearing in the so-called “broccoli” case had been cancelled, which observers say clears the way for approval of the patent in question. The cancellation of hearing came from the removal of objection by competing companies to the patent filer.
The move calls into question the bounds of patentability on plants and animals, after the EPO appeal board last year rejected patents on conventional breeding such as occurs in nature. The European Patent Office Enlarged Board of Appeal was asked to review the patentability of a grant on broccoli, and another patent on a tomato. The patented broccoli and tomato plants were not genetically modified, but rather simply bred conventionally as farmers have done for ages, according to sources.
Plant varieties are not patentable and are protected under a sui generis system at the International Union for the Protection of Plant Varieties (UPOV).
The board in December 2010 decided that “essentially biological processes for the production of plants (or animals)” are excluded from patentability (IPW, Biodiversity/Genetic Resources/Biotech,10 December 2010).
The broccoli and tomato cases, one patented by Plant Bioscience Ltd. (EP 1069819) and the other by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture (EP 1211926), had been brought before the EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal after France-based seed cooperative Limagrain Group, Swiss biotech company Syngenta, and multinational food company Unilever filed complaints, respectively. Plant Bioscience already markets in the United Kingdom a “new variety” of broccoli made from conventional breeding methods.
Participants of the 18th session of Human Rights Council in Geneva - Photo Jean-Marc Ferré UNIS
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A panel of five independent UN rights experts reporting to the Human Rights Council unanimously rejected the conclusion of the Palmer Report that says Israel’s blockade of Gaza is legal.
On a statement produced by the UN in Geneva on 13 September, the panel says it rejected the Palmer Report findings because the blockade had subjected Gazans to collective punishment in “flagrant contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law.”
“The Palmer report was aimed at political reconciliation between Israel and Turkey. It is unfortunate that in the report politics should trump the law,” said Richard Falk, Special Rapporteur on human rights, on the statement.
According to the panel, the blockade should immediately cease as “the people of Gaza must be afforded protection in line with international law.”
For the United Nations experts, “decisive steps must be taken to defend the dignity and basic welfare of the civilian population of Gaza, more than half of whom are children.”
Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the right to food said at least two-thirds of Gazan households are food insecure, and “evidence has shown that the so-called ‘easing’ of the blockade has not led this to improve.”
AFRICA – An unnamed UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s representative in Kenya has said to the Associated Press that the situation in Somalia could become “simply unbearable” in the coming weeks if people continue to abandon their homes in search of food.
The food crisis in the Horn of Africa is escalating, with 12 million people in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda requiring emergency assistance, said FAO.
Parts of southern Somalia are suffering from famine.
Over the past year, the region has faced two poor rainy seasons, resulting in one of the driest years since 1950. In addition, high local cereal prices, excessive livestock mortality, conflict and restricted humanitarian access in some areas is worsening the situation for Somalis.
A high-level operational meeting has been called for 18 August 2011 at FAO’s Rome headquarters to agree on urgent measures in response to the worsening crisis in the Horn of Africa.
Links to: FAO, the Associated Press
United Nations agencies are coming under pressure to leave Haiti, as crowds protesting their presence spread to the capital, Port-au-Prince, Thursday 19 November. The rock-throwing, tire-burning crowds also appear to be protesting what they see as government inaction. Cholera has now killed some 1,100 people and spread throughout most of the country. Rumours have also spread, that a UN team from Nepal brought the disease, which the UN denies. More than 18,000 people have been hospitalized with the disease and, according to CNN, the 4 percent hospital death rate is far higher than is expected in developed countries. The true numbers are likely far higher, but better data collection is needed to determine the extent of the outbreak, Nigel Fisher, the United Nations co-ordinator of humanitarian affairs in Haiti, told Canada’s CBC.
Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, has pointed a finger at the United Nations, and in particular at Peter Galbraith, the then deputy head of the UN mission Afghanistan, as the source of “massive” election fraud in 2009. The disputed presidential elections, which Karzai won despite having a high number of votes for him rejected by Western officials, were the centre of international attention with heavy suspicions of fraud. Karzai also blamed the European Union for being behind the fraud, in remarks made Thursday 1 April.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, BBC
Title: Nigerian artists exhibit
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Three contemporary Nigerian artists exhibit their work at the UN in Geneva.
Start Date: 2010-03-29
End Date: 2010-04-16
Title: Sufi Music and Traditional Dance
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Performance of Sufi Music and Traditional Dance, on the occasion of the of the National day of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
Date: 2010-03-30
Title: Colourful Dreams of Remembrance: Hungarian Contemporary Roma Artists
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Sponsored by Permanent Mission of the Republic of Hungary to the UN in Geneva.
Start Date: 2010-03-03
End Date: 2010-03-26
US Ambassador to UN and int'l oganizations in Geneva, Betty E King
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Betty E King presented her credentials as US ambassador to the UN Wednesday 3 March. She is now officially the Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva., filling a post that has been empty since Warren Tichenor left when Barack Obama became president in January 2009.
Three other Obama appointments to Geneva, besides King await Senate confirmation: Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe as US ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council and Laura Kennedy as US ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, as well as Michael Punke as ambassador to the World Trade Organization in Geneva.
A major snowstorm battered the US East Coast late Tuesday 9 February, the second in less than a week, forcing Congress in Washington, DC and the United Nations in New York to remain closed Wednesday. Reuters reports that keeping Washington federal workers at home for a third straight day is costly: estimated at $100 million a day. Schools are closed from Boston to Maryland, with 20-32 inches of snow predicted.
Links to other sites: Boston Globe, Reuters, Washington Post
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Peter Maurer, who is currently Switzerland’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York, has been named the country’s new secretary of state, in the Foreign Affairs Office. He will service under Federal Councilor Micheline Calmy-Rey, minister for foreign affairs.
Maurer, 56, replaces Michael Ambuehl, who was named 13 January to the new post of International Financial and Tax Matters. Maurer will most likely take up his post in March 2010, when Ambuehl, whose post must be confirmed by parliament, begins his new job.
ICann, UPU sign historice domain name agreement in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A new top-level domain, .post , has been created as a result of an agreement signed Saturday12 December by the Universal Postal Union and Icann (Universal Postal Union and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number), which has global responsibility for overseeing Internet domain names. The agreement ties together for the first time at the highest level the physical world of postal services and the Internet. The UPU is the first non-governmental organization to manage a domain, setting a precedent for other UN and international bodies.
The UPU is a United Nations organization based in Bern, Switzerland, established by the 1874 Treaty of Bern to bring order to the chaos of international postal exchanges at the time. Its 191 members are governments, postal services and other stakeholders in the postal delivery business, who together have 600,000 postal service offices around the world.
The United Nations has suspended approval of an uncofirmed number of wind farms, possibly up to 50, in China that have applied to be part of the carbon trading scheme. The move comes amid calls for the CDM (Clean Development Mechanism), of which carbon trading is a part, to be revamped and just days before the climate conference in Copenhagen. The Bonn, Germany office that oversees the applications from China has stopped approving them because of concerns that the Chinese government may have lowered subsidies to make the farms eligible for funding, according to CNN, which also cites other observers who say the problem is more complex than that. China has earned far more carbon credits under the UN plan than any other country, estimates by the Financial Times show. Carbon credits can be used to finance projects in developing countries to reduce CO2 emissions, allowing industrial countries to trade them with developing countries and thus offset their own excess emissions, under the Kyoto Protocol agreements. The Copenhagen meeting is seeking a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol.
Links to other sites: CNN, Financial Times, Guardian, UK
Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe (image: Cisac, Stanford University)
Update 18:50 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - US President Barack Obama has nominated two more women for key posts in Geneva. Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe is nominated as US ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, as a member of the US Mission to the United Nations. Her name had been circulating earlier in the year as a possible candidate for the post of US Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, and thus head of the US Mission, but Obama 24 October nominated Betty King for that post.
Laura Kennedy has been nominated as US ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament (CoD), as part of the Department of State, but the CoD is based in Geneva. The Conference has 65 member nations, and it famously ended a 12-year stalemate in May 2009 with a new work programme. The new agenda’s priority work is to develop the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, which would end production of fissile materials for use in atomic bombs.
The two nominations, as well as that of Betty King, are subject to review by the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, which then makes recommendations to the full Senate, and it votes on each appointment. The process normally takes two to three months.
UN pin for San Francisco conference
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Architect Donal McLaughlin, who designed the symbol that was adopted by the United Nations, has died at his home in Maryland, USA, aged 102. He graduated from Yale University where his thesis was on circular graphics.
After working for the CIA’s forerunner, the OSS, where he was chief of graphics during the war, he was commissioned to come up with a pin that could identify delegates to the first UN conference in San Francisco, USA in 1945. The symbol of the continents seen from above the north pole, surrounded by olive leaves, was adopted by the new organization as its own. He also designed the courtroom for the Nuremburg war crimes trials.
Link to other site: NZZ (Ger), Yale Alumni Magazine
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UNHCR in Geneva reports that Pakistan is scheduling for Monday 13 July the start of repatriation of displaced persons the Buner and Swat districts, giving the first opportunity to go home to people living in camps. The Swat Valley and nearby areas were the scene of heavy fighting between government forces and militants in the
North West Frontier Province’s districts of Swat, Buner and Lower Dir, at the start of May.
Hans Erni, age 100, in front of earlier self-portrait
Lucerne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Articulate, still handsome, far more interested in debating the state of the world than in basking in the recognition that has at last come to him: this is Hans Erni at the ripe age of 100. Visitors tend to walk up to him, awestruck by his age, and walk away from him having forgotten his age because he gives them too many other things to think about.
A career spanning 80 years, the globe – with peace an enduring theme
Erni is one of Switzerland’s finest 20th (and 21st) century artists, but he has only relatively recently been acknowledged as fully as he deserves. His career, spanning nearly 80 years, was celebrated in February with a major retrospective in Martigny at the Gianadda Foundation. The Kunstmuseum in Lucerne 24 May opened the first public museum showing of his work since 1979 with a collection that traces the development of the artist.
Erni was honoured in Geneva Saturday 6 June: his most recent project, a 60-metre peace fresco at the entrance to the United Nations building, the Palais des Nations, was unveiled at an outdoor ceremony open to the public. The year 2009 is a series of such events, throughout Switzerland – and Erni finds the energy to travel and participate in several of them.
Politics took their toll
It is not that Erni is an unknown artist: quite the opposite. He has a large popular following, his work is housed in the Hans Erni museum in Lucerne (an extension of the country’s most popular museum, the Transportation Museum) since 1979, and for decades he has been the guest of governments around the world.
International humanitarian groups launched a new appeal for donor funds for Zimbabwe under the umbrella Cap (Consolidated Appeals Process), asking for a 30 percent increase in aid to get the country back on its feet. Cap is a short-term humanitarian financing tool which is combined with other funding but the launch of the new appeal 1 June is unusual in that it goes beyond emergency funding to providing recovery aid, in recognition of progress made by the Inclusive Government formed in February 2009 by the two main parties.
Zimbabwe is still deep in crisis, with AllAfrica (UN Irin) noting that in March, when an initial appeal had reached $719 million for basic aid, “Six million people had limited or no access to safe water and sanitation; 1.5 million children required support to access education; 800,000 people were in need of food aid, and 44,000 children younger than five years needed treatment for severe acute malnutrition.”
North Korea has declared the end to its truce with South Korea, but the UN Command says the armistice is still in place, reports, the BBC, as the international community continues to press the North to stop testing nuclear missiles. US and South Korean troops have been put on a high level of alert in the wake of the North’s announcement and are reportedly increasing surveillance operations. The truce ended the Korean War in the 1950s. The United Nations Security Council is debating a response to North Korea’s nuclear activities.
Hans Erni with Yolanda Rojal, president of the Swiss foreign press association in Lucerne 16 May 2009
Hans Erni
Lucerne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Hans Erni, Swiss artist who celebrated his 100th birthday in February, has been named Swiss Personality of the Year 2008-2009 by the Foreign Press Association, which is based in Geneva.
Erni Saturday evening 16 May welcomed a small group of journalists to his museum next to the Swiss Transportation Museum in Lucerne, his hometown. He spoke passionately for 30 minutes, focusing on his continuing work to promote peace.
The artist’s new wall fresco, a series of ceramic panels that plea for peace, is currently being installed to cover 60 metres of cement wall at the United Nations building in Geneva. It will be unveiled 6 June in a public ceremony.
Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israel speech at the opening of the Durban Review Conference Monday 20 April in Geneva inspired a walkout at the UN. Approximately 40 diplomats left the room at the beginning of Ahmadinejad’s passionate rant on the evils of Israel. The speech took place on the eve of the Holocaust Memorial Day. International Herald Tribune, Al-Jazeera
The European Union, which has been asked to supply the bulk of soldiers that will be part of a new deployment by the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has so far turned a mostly deaf ear to the appeal, as the UN signs a one-year extension of its peacekeeping mandate.
The United Nations passed a resolution Tuesday that will allow military patrols from several countries to chase pirates on land if they are “in hot pursuit.” Some 40 vessels have been attacked, particularly around the Horn of Africa, in 2008. CNN
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – December 10 marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (see video below) adopted by the general assembly of the United Nations. The declaration, signed in Paris, states that all human beings, regardless of race, colour, creed, age, class and gender, are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Wednesday called for $7 billion dollars in aid to help 30 million people in more than 31 countries, as part of the Humanitarian Appeal 2009, making this the largest such appeal to private and public donors since 360 aid agencies, including UN organizations, began to coordinate their efforts in 1991in an annual, consolidated appeal.
