Intellectual Property

At this week's press conference a question - which appeared to be planted - was asked about the release of intellectual property on vaccines.

Mr Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary-General, who will, with our WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus both had extensive replies on hand, indicating that they were not taken by surprise. There is no criticism of that. However, their replies were focussed on two issues - neither of which were public safety or, ironically, intellectual property.

"Brexit" rumbles on but the juggernaut that is EU legislation will not be denied: indeed, in many cases even staunch "leavers" see benefits in much of what the EU does (which leads to the charge of "cherry picking" to which the leavers say "so what?")

The Trade Mark Directive is one such piece of legislation providing intellectual property protection across a large market and, through international recognition, across much of the world. But it's not all rosy and it shows something about how EU citizens relate to their law-makers.