Trans Pacific Partnership News and Comments:
- USTR Statement: Stakeholder Input Sharpens, Focuses U.S. Work on Pharmaceutical Intellectual Rights in the TPP.
- See also: comments by Sean Flynn and Brook Baker
- Joint Statement of Mexican Senator Iris Vianey Mendoza and Civil Society Organizations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations
- James Love. USTR FOIA, 127 pages of emails between industry and USTR TPP negotiators
- PIJIP’s table of Analyses of the Leaked TPP Intellectual Property Chapter (with new additions by Consumers International, Article 19, and CPATH).
- Carolina Rossini and Burcu Kilic. US push on intellectual property conflicts with international norms.
Development Agenda in WIPO: the Time for Libraries and Archives
[Luisa Fernanda Guzmán Mejía] After approving the Marrakesh Treaty, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will resume the Development Agenda. Now is the time for reviewing the needs of libraries and archives, but will there be political will to do so? Click here for more.
Competition Commission of India to Investigate Ericsson for Unfair Royalties for Use of Standards Essential Patents
[Mike Palmedo] The Competition Commission of India will investigate Ericsson for anticompetitive practices related to its Standard Essential Patents on smartphone technology. The competition complaint arose as part of a dispute between Ericsson and the Indian consumer electronics company Micromax. According to the CCI order announcing the case: “(Micromax) has alleged that (Ericsson) was demanding unfair, discriminatory, and exorbitant royalty for its patents regarding GSM technology. The royalty demanded by Ericsson was excessive when compared to royalties charged by other patentees for patents similar or comparable to the patents held by Ericsson.” Click here for more.
Study: Most Important Innovations Are Not Patented
[Sephen Kinsella] A fascinating new paper, “Reassessing patent propensity: evidence from a data-set of R&D awards 1977-2004,” by Roberto Fontana, Alessandro Nuvolari, Hiroshi Shimizu, and Andrea Vezzulli… studied the innovations from the “R&D 100 Awards” competition organized by the journal Research and Development, which, since 1963, “has been awarding this prize to the 100 most technologically significant new products available for sale or licensing in the year preceding the judgments.” I.e., this is a list of important and “technological breakthrough” innovations over almost 3 decades. The authors searched the patent records for all of these innovations to determine which of them were patented or not, and conclude “a relative low number of important innovations are patented.” Click here for more.
ISPs Can Be Required to Block Access to Pirate Sites, EU Court Hears
[Andy] In legal advice to the EU Court of Justice, Advocate General Pedro Cruz Villalón today announced that EU law allows for Internet service providers to be ordered to block their customers from accessing known copyright infringing sites. The opinion, which relates to a dispute between a pair of movie companies and an Austrian ISP over the now-defunct site Kino.to, is not legally binding. However, the advice of the Advocate General is usually followed in such cases. Click here for more.
