Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest V
[PIJIP] American University Washington College of Law’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property is pleased to announce the hosting of Fifth Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest, September 27-29, 2018, Washington D.C. As with previous meetings, we will have space available for self-organized project meetings and trainings in the preceding days – September 24-26. The Congress has long defined its objectives as lying at the intersection of scholarship and advocacy, including: the mobilization of existing scholarly research directly into the hands of civil society advocates, business leaders and policy makers, leading to evidence-based policies and practices; the collaborative identification of urgent, global and local research priorities and generation of a joint research/advocacy agenda; and the solidification of an inter-disciplinary, cross-sector and global networked community of experts and practitioners focused on public interest aspects of IP policy and practice. Click here for more.
Copyright & Education in the Digital Environment: Challenges & Opportunities
[Event – Tuesday, Nov.14, 13:00 – Cosponsored by PIJIP and the Brazilian Delegation to WIPO] There is an increasing recognition in both domestic and international copyright reform debates that all creators and users in all countries benefit from copyright systems that are balanced with both author and user rights. A key balancing feature of modern copyright law is sufficient flexibility to accommodate the shifting technologies and practices of the digital age. This is particularly true in the field of education, where the evolution of digital technologies has made distribution of educational materials more cost effective, and raised concerns in some sectors about market erosion. This panel discussion will focus on the challenges and opportunities that digital technologies pose for copyright and educational materials distribution and what the best role for WIPO to play in the field might be. Click here for more.
Patients and Parliamentarians ask Chilean President Michelle Bachelet to Support a Petition for Compulsory Licenses for Patents Related to Hepatitis C and Cancer Drugs
[Luis Villarroel] Representatives of Corporacion Innovarte, Patient Foundation Nuevo Renacer, Pharmaceutical Chemists Guild, and cancer and hepatitis patients attended the Presidential Palace “La Moneda” on November 10th to deliver a letter to the Chilean President of the Republic, Michelle Bachelet, asking her to instruct the Ministry of Health to declare that there are public health reasons justifying the issuance of non-voluntary licenses for the patents that prevent entry into Chile of the latest generics for the treatment of Hepatitis C and Prostate Cancer. They were supported by a number of congressmen, such as Giorgio Jackson, Miguel Ángel Alvarado and Gabriel Boric. Click here for more.
A New Contesting Narrative? WIPO Report Downplays Patent Barriers to Vaccine Access
[Hu Yuanqiong] Advocates of access to medicines movement would not feel unfamiliar with the issue of patent evergreening on chemical medicines while monopoly could get prolonged through applying for multiple patents on small changes of the same medicine. The similar tricks have also been practiced on other medical products, such as vaccines. As a traditional public health intervention, vaccines have been costing more money in recent years when a couple of newer generation of products are exhausting governments’ budgets largely due to their monopoly situations. Recent researches have suggested that patent thicket and evergreening, among others, have played an instrumental role. Click here for more.
Fighting (for) Copyright at Mozfest
[Judith Blijden] The last weekend of October in London, Mozilla organised Mozfest, its annual festival for the open internet movement. Mozilla wants to enable communities to contribute to making the internet a healthy place. The festival serves as a platform where civil society organisations, artists, journalists, copyright experts and other creators can come together to share and discuss the issues close to their hearts. At Mozfest, COMMUNIA organised two session on copyright issues. We wanted to explain the role it plays online, but also to reimagine copyright that could support, and not hinder, new forms of creativity. Click here for more.
Time for Costly Medicine Monopolies to Go from TPP Trade Talks
[Belinda Townsend, Deborah Gleeson, Hazel Moir, Joel Lexchin and Ruth Lopert] Negotiators from 11 countries have been racing to resurrect the near-dead Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit this weekend. The latest plan to get the controversial trade deal up and running again after the withdrawal of the United States involves freezing some of its controversial rules. These include rules for biologic drugs, an expensive class of medicines often used to treat conditions such as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. Click here for more.
New Draft Action Plans On Copyright Limitations And Exceptions At WIPO
[Catherine Saez] The World Intellectual Property Organization has grasped the nettle after years of discussion on the issue of limitations and exceptions to copyright, and provided draft action plans, one each for libraries, archives, museums, educational research institutions, and persons with other disabilities than sight impairment. The plans, being discussed in this week’s committee meeting, include brainstorming sessions, studies, and regional seminars, and conferences to advance understanding and issues related to copyright for those particular actors. Click here for more on IP Watch.
The International Debate on Generic Medicines of Biological Origin
[German Velasquez] The debate on generic medicines is not new. What makes it different today is that attacks levelled against biological products are couched in ever more “technical” and abstruse language that confuses even the World Health Organization (WHO). Innovative biological drugs, which have been introduced on the market in the past 20 to 30 years, make up, in terms of numbers, no more than 2 per cent of the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines but, in terms of cost, account for 15 per cent to 20 per cent of national drug expenditure. Click here for more.
