UPCOMING ONLINE PRESENTATIONS
PIJIP Professor Michael Carroll to Present on Copyright, Text and Data Mining at Online Conference on Resource Extraction
On July 8, PIJIP Faculty Director Michael Carroll will present his recent paper on copyright, text, and data mining at an upcoming interdisciplinary conference hosted by the Political Ecology Research Centre at New Zealand’s Massey University. The online conference, Extraction – Tracing the Viens, will “re-examine extraction and its contested place in contemporary capitalism.” It runs frome Jun 29 through July 10, is open to anyone, and does not require registration. Click here for more.
The Global Health Impact – Extending Access to Essential Medicines
In Global Health Impact – Extending Access to Essential Medicines, Professor Nicole Hassoun proposes a novel approach to evaluate the impact of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical companies. The approach addresses questions and relies on methodology that is interdisciplinary in nature, covering fields of study including economics, political science, public policy, sociology, geography, and philosophy; emphasizes empirical evidence as critical to assessing the capabilities and capacities of agents and institutions and valuing how facts inform political theory; and considers the obligations of pharmaceutical companies and the case for a new kind of ethical investment and consumption to promote global health from the perspective of bioethicists and business ethicists. Event is open, Registration required. Register and Participate:
COVID-19 AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Intellectual Property, Innovation and Access to Health Products for COVID-19: A Review of Measures Taken by Different Countries
[Nirmalya Syam] Abstract: The rising incidence of COVID-19 will require all countries, particularly developing and least developed countries, to be able to procure and manufacture the products required for the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Intellectual property (IP) rights over such products can constrain the ability of countries to rapidly procure and produce and supply the products required at a mass scale. This Policy Brief describes the measures and actions taken by different countries to address potential IP barriers to access to the products required for COVID-19. Click here for more.
Race Around the World for COVID-19 Vaccines
[Matthew Rimmer] While the Trump administration trumpets Operation Warp Speed’s search for COVID-19 vaccine, it is unwilling to collaborate with the world’s scientists who share their COVID-19 findings and have pledged to make a vaccine affordable and accessible for everyone. Click here for more.
See also: QUT Forum on Access to Essential Medicines. Link to videos.
Covid Lessons – Copyright and Online Learning
[Teresa Hackett] At the end of March, at the height of the global lockdown, UNESCO estimates that more than 1.5 billion learners in 193 countries were affected by country-wide or localized closures of schools and other educational institutions. The closures happened overnight and mid-way through the academic year, leaving no time for teachers and students to prepare. For education to continue, it had to move off-campus and online. Click here for more.
How COVID-19 Reinforces the Need for IP Reform and Research in South Africa
[Tobias Schonwetter] … The COVID-19 pandemic raises a number of important IP questions and brings to the fore some key deficiencies of our IP frameworks, which are often amplified if laws are as outdated as ours. Addressing these is now more urgent than ever. For me, three issues stand out. First, almost immediately after plans were drafted to provide emergency remote teaching to our students, I received a flurry of copyright-related queries concerning the legality of creating and distributing digitised educational materials, including (parts of) textbooks. It seemed as if all of sudden most of my colleagues and students started to be concerned about the restrictions imposed by copyright law because, logistically, emergency remote learning builds on the legal distribution of and access to digital learning materials. Click here for more on medium.com.
See also: Caroline Ncube in Afronomics Law. The musings of a copyright scholar working in South Africa: is Copyright Law supportive of emergency remote teaching? Link.
COVID-19 puts a spotlight on the Medicines Patent Pool
[William Worley] … MPP was created in 2010 by Unitaid, an international project for financing HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis treatments. As it approaches its 10th birthday in July, the model has hit the spotlight amid heated discussions about how to make any potential COVID-19 treatments and vaccinations more accessible. In particular, campaigners have been calling for patents — which protect intellectual property — to be pooled in a mechanism such as the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, or C-TAP. Click here for the full story on DevEx.
SOUTH AFRICAN COPYRIGHT REFORM
June 16, 2020: A Sad Day for South African Youth
[South African Democratic Teachers Union, Independent Beneficiaries Forum, South African Guild of Actors, ReCreate South Africa, Section 27 and BlindSA] On June 16th we celebrate the resistance by the youth of Soweto and across South Africa to oppressive laws that limited their future education prospects based on race. In 1976 black school students left their desks to protest the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. The massacre of students that followed was one of the darkest days in the history of apartheid. Sadly, 44 years later on June 16th 2020, we faced another dark day for the prospects of our young people. In a letter which received little media attention, President Cyril Ramaphosa referred the Copyright Amendment Bill back to Parliament. This move by the President could dash the future education and employment prospects of millions more young South Africans. Click here for more.
Ambivalence to Fair Use in U.S. Trade Policy
[Jonathan Band] On June 16, 2020, President Ramaphosa of the Republic of South Africa referred the Copyright Amendment Bill (“CAB”), which had been awaiting his signature for more than 18 months, back to the Parliament. This action appears motivated at least in part by the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”)’s concerns about the CAB’s inclusion of a fair use right. This is the most recent example of apparent ambivalence towards the “exportation” of fair use in U.S. trade policy over the past 25 years—notwithstanding that the Supreme Court has twice held that fair use is a built-in accommodation between the Copyright Act and the First Amendment. Click here for more.
DOMESTIC IP LEGISLATION
Kenya’s Intellectual Property Bill, 2020, and Its Shortcomings in Adopting All Lawful TRIPS Public Health Flexibilities
[Brook Baker] Abstract: Given the importance of access to medicines to human rights and well-being in Kenya, it is appropriate to analyze whether Kenya has currently incorporated the allowed public health flexibilities to the greatest extent possible in its draft Intellectual Property Bill, 2020. This analysis will focus on the patent, utility model, and enforcement measures only as they are the ones directly relevant to access to medicines and other health technologies. The analysis starts with the premise that Kenya wishes to avoid granting unwarranted patents on unworthy inventions, especially with respect to medicines and other health technologies. Click here for more.
Hungary’s Fast Tracked Implementation of Article 5 CDSM Directive in Response to the Pandemic
[Paul Keller] Last Tuesday, Hungary somewhat unexpectedly became the second EU member state to implement part of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM) Directive into national law, after France, which implemented Article 15 (the new press publishers’ right) back in October last year. Hungary has now passed a law implementing Article 5 of the DSM directive (on the use of works and other subject matter in digital and cross-border teaching activities) into national law. Articles 323 to 327 of the new law “on transitional arrangements and health preparedness for the cessation of emergencies” contain modifications and additions to the Hungarian Copyright act of 1999 that expand the scope of the existing exceptions for educational use in §34 and §35 of the Copyright Act to allow digital uses of works both onsite and through secure electronic environments. On the surface this seems to be a fairly straightforward implementation of Article 5 of the CDSM Directive. The Hungarian law does not make use of the options to allow “suitable licences” to override the exception (Art 5(2)) or the ability to require fair compensation for uses made under the exception (Art 5(4)). Click here for the full story on the Kluer Copyright Blog.
