Analysis of WIPO Report on Limitations and Exceptions: Report Does Not Adequately Reflect Stakeholder Priorities
[PIJIP] In 2019, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) hosted a series of three regional workshops and an international seminar on copyright limitations and exceptions for libraries, archives, museums, and educational and research institutions. WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights summarized the meetings in a subsequent report (SCCR/40/2). Today, PIJIP releases an analysis of WIPO’s report by Professor Sean Flynn. Click here for more.
PIJIP and Wikimedia Germany Co-Host RightsCon 2021 Panel on Access to Digital Education in the Time of COVID-19
[Aneeta Mathur-Ashton] PIJIP Director Sean Flynn co-hosted a panel titled Access to Digital Education in the Time of COVID-19: Copyright and Public Health Emergencies as part of RightsCon 2021. He hosted the discussion with Justus Dreyling, the project manager of international regulation with Wikimedia Germany. The panel focused on the impact of inadequate copyright rules on access to and use of educational materials in digital setting as well as how new legal instruments at the international level could solve these problems and facilitate access to knowledge. Click here for more.
The Role of Courts in Implementing TRIPS Flexibilities: Brazilian Supreme Court Rules Automatic Patent Term Extensions Unconstitutional
[Vitor Henrique Pinto Ido] This policy brief provides a background, summary and analysis of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court decision of 6 May 2021 that ruled automatic patent term extensions unconstitutional, striking down Article 40, Sole Paragraph, of the Brazilian Industrial Property Code of 1996. It concludes that this is a landmark ruling that contributes to the implementation of a more balanced patent regime in Brazil, with a positive impact on access to medicines in the country. It is an important precedent in relation to the role that courts may play in defining the contours of intellectual property protection and the TRIPS flexibilities. Click here for more.
IFLA Statement on Controlled Digital Lending
[International Federation of Library Associations] Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) has become widely talked about over the last two years, and in particular in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the specific term has only relatively recently come to be used[1], forms of controlled lending have been utilised for many years, for example in the context of document supply. As such, controlled lending has helped to fulfil the mission of libraries to support research, education and cultural participation within the limits of existing copyright laws. Licensed eBooks have opened the door to a radical undermining of the traditional public interest functions and freedoms of libraries. These still exist for paper books, but with the advent of licensed eBooks, libraries are no longer free to decide when or what to purchase, with some publishers even refusing to sell to libraries. Controlled digital lending provides an alternative to a licensing approach, and so a means of redressing the balance. Click here for more.
WHO Supporting South African Consortium to Establish First COVID mRNA Vaccine Technology Transfer Hub
[World Health Organization] The World Health Organization (WHO) and its COVAX partners are working with a South African consortium comprising Biovac, Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, a network of universities and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to establish its first COVID mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub. The move follows WHO’s global call for Expression of Interest (EOI) on 16 April 2021 to establish COVID mRNA vaccine technology transfer hubs to scale up production and access to COVID vaccines. Over the coming weeks, the partners will negotiate details with the Government of South Africa and public and private partners inside the country and from around the world. Click here for more.
See also: Public Citizen Calls for Urgent Support of WHO Vaccine Tech Transfer Hub. Link.
Future Trade & Investment: US-Kenya FTA and Safeguarding Public Health
[Paul Ogendi] Given that the negotiating text of the U.S.-Kenya Free Trade Agreement is not yet public, this legal analysis compares the texts of other recently negotiated trade agreements to predict what the U.S. agenda will be, and provides recommendations for Kenya during the negotiating process. The analysis shows that apart from patent linkage, the intellectual property provisions common in U.S. agreements that appear most likely to be introduced are not accepted outside of that context. While the renegotiated United States-MexicoCanada Agreement brought back many provisions that were hitherto suspended under the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership does not pursue the same agenda. Instead, the latter keeps some of the most important flexibilities in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), as enshrined in the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health. Kenya should pursue a negotiating agenda in intellectual property that imitates the RCEP model rather than adopting the U.S. approach. Click here for more on the Boston University GDP Center Working Paper site.
Developing Countries Remain Upbeat on TRIPS Waiver Negotiations
[D. Ravi Kanth] The proponents of the TRIPS waiver on 17 June expressed optimism on the intense schedule of meetings being convened by the chair at the World Trade Organization (WTO) for text-based discussions on the revised textual proposal that was submitted by the 63 co-sponsors in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, said people familiar with the development. The revised proposal (IP/C/W/669/Rev.1) submitted by the 63 co-sponsors on 25 May has set the ground for negotiating a temporary waiver for suspending the implementation of certain provisions in the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement relating to copyrights, industrial designs, patents, and protection of undisclosed information for a period of at least three years. Click here for more on twn.my.
