President Biden should choose the next director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office carefully.
By Priti Krishtel
Ms. Krishtel is a founder and an executive director of the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge, a nonprofit organization working to address structural inequities in how medicines are developed and distributed.
Feb. 9, 2021
Credit.Paul J Richards/Agence France-Press, via Getty Images
On his first day as president, Joe Biden signed an executive order proclaiming a “whole-of-government equity agenda.” Among other things, the order requires the head of each federal agency to identify and seek to redress structural inequities in its operations.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/science/colombia-panela-patent-gonzalez.html
Workers in the final stages of an artisanal panela-making cycle in Versalles, a town in Colombia’s Valle del Cauca.
Colombians Ask: Who Would Dare Patent Panela?
Makers of Latin America’s favorite traditional sweetener say a sugar engineer wants exclusive control of their centuries-old product.
Workers in the final stages of an artisanal panela-making cycle in Versalles, a town in Colombia’s Valle del Cauca.Credit.
Jan. 26, 2021
VALLE DEL CAUCA, Colombia This past April, Jorge González Ulloa, a shareholder at one of Colombia’s largest sugar companies, was awarded U.S. Patent No. 10,632,167, which described a method for making an unrefined sugar containing high levels of policosanols, alcohols found in sugar cane wax that are purported to lower cholesterol.