[Posted to the Communia blog by Anne-Catherine Lorrain, (CC0 1.0)]
The mission on culture at the digital era commissioned by the French government and supervised by Pierre Lescure, rather pompously entitled ‘Acte II de l’exception culturelle’, released its report this week in Paris: ‘Rapport sur la politique culturelle à l’ère des contenus numériques’, downloadable in two volumes on the website of the Ministry of Culture (in French). Continue reading »
Today at 2pm EST, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet will hold the first hearing to address copyright reform since the announcement by Chairman Goodlatte of a comprehensive review of U.S. copyright law. Prepared witness statements are available, and the hearing webcast will be up on the hearing’s webpage. Continue reading »
[Posted to michaelgeist.ca (CC-BY)(Link)] Copyright cases typically only reach the Supreme Court of Canada once every few years, ensuring that each case is carefully parsed and analyzed. As readers of this blog know, on July 12, 2012, the Supreme Court issued rulings on five copyright cases in a single day, an unprecedented tally that shook the very foundations of copyright law in Canada. In fact, with the decisions coming just weeks after the Canadian government passed long-awaited copyright reform legislation, Canadian copyright law experienced a seismic shift that will take years to sort out.
I am delighted to report that this week the University of Ottawa Press published The Copyright Pentalogy: How the Supreme Court of Canada Shook the Foundations of Canadian Copyright Law, an effort by many of Canada’s leading copyright scholars to begin the process of examining the long-term implications of the copyright pentalogy. Continue reading »
[EIFL press release (CC-BY)] On the occasion of World Intellectual Property Day with the theme “Creativity: the next generation”, EIFL is pleased to publish the fourth in a series of case studies with the results of advocacy campaigns in support of copyright law reform in EIFL partner countries. Continue reading »
[Cross posted from Inside Views: IP-Watch, (CC-BY-NC-ND)]Much – if not everything – has been said about the health innovation and access to medicines impact of the recent decision of the Indian Supreme Court (SC) in the Novartis case. But there are broader implications. The ruling is also a revealing tale about the changing role of developing countries in the global intellectual property landscape and the growing influence of the judiciary in these countries in the implementation of international intellectual property rules. Continue reading »
Brook Baker
Novartis, its fellow Big Pharma multinationals, Chambers of Commerce, and PhRMA have all roundly denounced India’s Supreme Court’s decision invalidating Novartis’ patent application for Glivec (Gleevec in the United States) and its affirmation of strict anti-evergreening standards of patentability and inventive step in India. As usual, Big Pharma cannot tell the truth about what India has done, what international intellectual property rules require, and what the impact of this decision will be on product introductions in India and innovation of new medicines. Because journalists continue to carry Pharma canards and since observers are anxious to understand whether India’s decision is legal or purely instrumental to advance industrial policy in favor of Indian generics, I debunk the major myths with what I hope are convincing facts. Continue reading »
Ten law professors with expertise in intellectual property and trade secrecy wrote to the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC) on April 1 in support of the Commission¹s groundbreaking proposed hydraulic fracturing (fracking) regulations that would require corporations to disclose trade secret information, like chemical ingredients, used in fracking activity in Alaska. The authors, while taking no position on whether fracking should occur in Alaska, noted that there is a debate around the environmental, health and safety (EHS) impacts, if any, of fracking. Continue reading »
Brook Baker
In a stunning victory for poor patients throughout the developing world, the Indian Supreme Court today ruled against a Novartis challenge of a denial of a patent on its cancer medicine Glivec.[1] The Court upheld strict standards in the India Patents Act thereby limiting pharmaceutical monopolies and speeding access to more affordable generic medicines. The Indian generic industry, the pharmacy of poor in the Global South that supplies over 80% of AIDS medicines for the 8 million people in low- and middle-income countries, will not have to delay introduction of medicines year after year as Big Pharma evergreens its patent monopolies by seeking new 20 year patents on minor variations to existing medicines. Continue reading »
[Press Release from the Lawyers Collective (Contact)] In a triumphant victory for patients fighting for access to medicines, a division bench of the Supreme Court of India comprising Hon’ble Justice Aftab Alam and Hon’ble Justice Ranjana Desai, today dismissed Swiss MNC Novartis’ appeal for a patent to Novartis for its anti-cancer medicine, imatinib mesylate (Gleevec). The case is especially pertinent because it involved the interpretation of section 3(d) of the Patents Act, 1970, a public health safeguard introduced by Parliament in 2005 to prevent evergreening. Putting an end to the controversy over the provision, the Supreme Court has recognised the impact of patents on access to medicines and called for a strict interpretation of section 3(d). Continue reading »
[Reposted from http://hurips.blogspot.kr] Today the National Human Rights Commissionof S. Korea published a special report on information human rights. It is the first report comprehensively discussing the progress of information and communication technologies in terms of human rights and providing recommendations for the protection, promotion, and enjoyment of information human rights. In this report, the information human rights covers four different categories: rights to information privacy; freedom of expression online; rights to access to information; and rights to culture and information. Continue reading »
Today, PIJIP Director and PLoS Board Member Michael Carroll commended the Obama Administration for issuing an historic policy Directive that opens up access to the crucial results of publicly funded research by directing all federal agencies with annual research and development budgets of $100 million or more to provide the public with free and unlimited online access to the results that research:
“Today, the Obama Administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy adopted a pro-Internet, pro-science, pro-innovation policy that requires research articles reporting the results of federally funded research to be made available over the Internet. Importantly, the policy also addresses research data and directs that these data should be made public to the greatest extent feasible. Agencies should embrace these opportunities to increase the value and impact of the research they fund with vigor and creativity.” Continue reading »
[Centrum Cyfrowe blog, CC-BY]
As part of our policy work on copyright reform in Poland (conducted with the support of Open Society Foundations), we will be publishing a monthly report on key developments in this policy area. Most of the links lead to content in Polish.
1. The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage has decided to set up the Copyright Forum – a platform for discussion on issues in area of copyright law and especially its reform. The representatives of communities of authors, creative industries, commercial users, chambers of commerce and NGOs dealing with issues of copyright are invited to participate in meetings. Following topics will be initially addressed: orphan works and works out-of-commerce, financing public domain, full implementation of Directive 2006/115/EC on public lending right, the scope of criminal liability in field of copyright and related rights and licensing in digital single market. The platform will also discuss issues related to the European stakeholder dialogue „Licences for Europe” and the Communication from European Commission on content in the digital single market (COM (2012) 789). The Forum is scheduled to start in March 2013. Continue reading »