Author: InfoJustice Eds.

Does WIPO’s New Leadership Have the Vision to Shake Up Global Copyright Policy-Making?

Posted by | Apr 18, 2020 | , ,

[Brigitte Vézina] This change in leadership opens the way for bold new perspectives and a sharpened focus on much needed global copyright policy reform that has been urged for decades. With Tang at the helm, WIPO and its member states will have a unique opportunity to recalibrate an outdated, unbalanced copyright system, embrace on equal terms the views and opinions of civil society organizations, and create a new order where rules are fit for the digital environment in which we all learn, create, and share.

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Patent holders urged to take “Open COVID Pledge” for quicker end to pandemic

Posted by | Apr 9, 2020 |

With the number of people afflicted with COVID-19 surging past 1 million, thousands dying of COVID-19 every day, and the situation likely to worsen in the coming months, an international coalition of legal experts, engineers and scientists are calling on companies, universities and other organizations to make their intellectual property (IP) temporarily available free of charge for use in ending the COVID-19 pandemic and minimizing the impact of the disease.

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South Centre Letter to WTO, WHO, and WIPO on Covid-19 and the TRIPS Art. 73 Exception for “Essential Security Interests”

Posted by | Apr 5, 2020 | ,

…Access to affordable medicines, vaccines and diagnostics and to medical equipment, and to the technologies to produce them, is indispensable to treat COVID-19. Such technologies should be broadly available to manufacture and supply what is needed to address the disease… In this connection, I wish to recall that in accordance to the ‘Security Exceptions’ contained in Article 73(b) of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), any World Trade Organization Member can take “any action which it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests”. The use of this exception will be fully justified to procure medical products and devices or to use the technologies to manufacture them as necessary to address the current health emergency.

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Civil Society Letter to WIPO Director General Francis Gurry on Covid-19 and Intellectual Property

Posted by | Apr 3, 2020 |

We write to you as organisations and individuals representing researchers, educators, students, and the institutions that support them, to encourage WIPO to take a clear stand in favour of ensuring that intellectual property regimes are a support, and not a hindrance, to efforts to tackle both the Coronavirus outbreak and its consequences. The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a bright light on how important intellectual property limitations and exceptions can be to development and human flourishing. Researchers discovered the spread of the virus through a text and data mining project analyzing copyrighted news articles, enabled by Canada’s flexible fair dealing right for research purposes. The earliest potential treatments have been developed through existing medicines, enabled by experimental use exceptions to patent rights.

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Creative Commons Interview with Dr. Lucie Guibault: What Scientists Should Know About Open Access

Posted by | Mar 31, 2020 | , ,

[Interview by Victoria Heath and Brigitte Vézina]…When time is of the essence, like now with the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific research results must be made available as soon as possible so that other scientists, policymakers and the general population can rely on sound scientific data in their decision-making process. Contrary to the traditional publishing model, which puts scientific publications behind a paywall or puts a 6 to 12-month embargo on self-archiving (depositing scholarly research in an online repository or open archive), open access allows for immediate, worldwide access to scientific and scholarly publications.

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Society’s Dependence on the Internet: 5 Cyber Issues the Coronavirus Lays Bare

Posted by | Mar 27, 2020 |

[Laura DeNardis and Jennifer Daskal] … While the online world is often portrayed as a societal ill, this pandemic is a reminder of how much the digital world has to offer. The pandemic also lays bare the many vulnerabilities created by society’s dependence on the internet. These include the dangerous consequences of censorship, the constantly morphing spread of disinformation, supply chain vulnerabilities and the risks of weak cybersecurity.

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Creative Commons South Africa Letter to President in Support of the Copyright Amendment Bill

Posted by | Mar 26, 2020 | ,

[Paul G. West, Derek Moore, Klaus Beiter and J.A.K. Olivier] Hereto our urgent request for the signing of the Copyright Amendment Bill, as was passed by both Houses and sent to your Office for assent after it was approved on 28 March 2019. We wish to specifically address the significance of the proposed amendments to the South African Copyright Act for access to learning materials in schools and higher education institutions in South Africa. The proposed “fair use” provision and specific exceptions for additional educational uses are not only compatible with international copyright law (the Berne Convention, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), and so on). They also pass the three-step test of international copyright law, as understood by the majority of international copyright law scholars.

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Public Statement of Library Copyright Specialists: Fair Use & Emergency Remote Teaching & Research

Posted by | Mar 25, 2020 | ,

[Statement signed by over 150 librarians] This Statement is meant to provide clarity for U.S. colleges and universities about how copyright law applies to the many facets of remote teaching and research in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. We write this as copyright specialists at colleges, universities, and other organizations supporting higher education in the U.S. and Canada who work every day with faculty, staff, and librarians to enable them to make ethical and legal choices about copyright issues in online teaching.

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Intellectual Property and Trade Measures to Address the Covid-19 Crisis

Posted by | Mar 25, 2020 | , ,

[South Centre] As the Covid-19 virus continues to spread globally, immediate actions to fight the pandemic is a major priority for all governments. In this time of crisis, the timeliness of response is critical. A coordinated global effort is required to ensure access to affordable, safe and effective treatments, diagnostics and vaccines that are developed, as well as access to medical supplies and devices.
The South Centre views with concern the attempts by some governments and industry players to monopolize the availability of those products for their own nationalist agenda or to maximize profit, ahead of societal interest in tackling this global public health emergency. The private enforcement of patents and government trade restrictions may pose a dire threat to the containment of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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A Public Health-Oriented Examination of Pharmaceutical Patent Claims: Sharing of Experiences at the Indian Patent Offices in Kolkata and Chennai

Posted by | Mar 24, 2020 |

[Lucas van der Hoeven] How to examine pharmaceutical patent applications to ensure access to affordable generic medicines while rewarding genuine pharmaceutical inventions, in accordance with the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), was the focus of two training workshops organized by the South Centre at the Indian Patent Offices in Kolkata and Chennai on 10-11 February and 13-14 February, respectively. These activities were part of the collaboration between the South Centre and the Indian Patent Office under a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industries, Government of India. Patent examiners and controllers in the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology sections of the patent offices exchanged views with experts from the South Centre on possible approaches to the examination of various types of typical claims in pharmaceutical patent applications.

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Fair Dealing and Emergency Remote Teaching in Canada

Posted by | Mar 24, 2020 | , , ,

[Samuel Trosow and Lisa Macklem] In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, Canadian post-secondary institutions are replacing classroom-based instruction with online teaching for the remainder of the Winter/Spring 2020 semester. … As instructors grapple with the mechanics of making this unanticipated conversion, most attention is focused on how to use technological tools to accomplish this transition. Less attention is being given to copyright issues. We are worried that without some affirmative intervention in the form of copyright training, opportunities to take advantage of Canada’s broad fair-dealing rights may be missed. This article explains how copyright law applies to online course materials. We hope it will assist instructors, librarians, teaching assistants, students and administrators working in Canadian colleges and universities.

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Coronavirus and Copyright – Or, the Copyright Concerns of the Widespread Move to Online Instruction

Posted by | Mar 20, 2020 | , ,

[Eoin O’Dell] … in our race to go online in time to deliver classes to our students, we must not forget that copyright law continues to apply. In that regard, I’m delighted to note that recent reforms to Irish copyright law will make all of our lives easier. The Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Law Provisions Act 2019 (also here) [COIPLPA] amended the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 (also here) [CRRA] in various significant ways, in particular relating to online educational uses of copyright material.

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Now Is the Time for Open Access Policies—Here’s Why

Posted by | Mar 20, 2020 | ,

[Victoria Heath and Brigitte Vézina] Over the weekend, news emerged that upset even the most ardent skeptics of open access. Under the headline, “Trump vs Berlin” the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported that President Trump offered $1 billion USD to the German biopharmaceutical company CureVac to secure their COVID-19 vaccine “only for the United States.”

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What We Hope for WIPO Under New Leadership: Neutrality, Fairness, and Transparency

Posted by | Mar 18, 2020 |

[Teresa Nobre] … it is of utmost importance that the new Director General’s stance on issues that have been key areas of concern for the organizations advocating for society-oriented reforms at WIPO clearly contribute to: ensuring full participation of civil society representatives and minimising discussions held behind closed doors; ensuring that WIPO’s work is based on solid evidence rather than the product of influence of private sector or other lobbies; guaranteeing that WIPO’s technical assistance activities are development-oriented and suitable to the national levels of development; and guaranteeing that WIPO and its staff are neutral and impartial sources of information and expertise.

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Google Submission to USTR, re: South Africa GSP Review

Posted by | Mar 18, 2020 | ,

[Google, Inc.] South Africa has made strong progress in crafting a fair use system that is closely modeled on the U.S. legal framework, including a four-factor test drawn from 17 U.S.C. § 107 that strikes an appropriate balance between the interests of authors, creators, and users. The adoption of fair use in South Africa would clearly benefit U.S. exporters, particularly when the alternative is a legal system that is less consistent with U.S. law.

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WIPO Nominates Daren Tang as New Director General

Posted by | Mar 11, 2020 |

[International Federation of Library Associations] The UN agency that manages the global intellectual property system – including copyright – has nominated a new Director General. As the current Chair of the organisation’s copyright committee – and as a modernising reformer nationally – he will bring a strong awareness of the needs of libraries to the role.

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Why South Africa Should Resist US Pressure to Extend Copyright Terms

Posted by | Mar 10, 2020 | , ,

[Paul Heald] The current term of copyright in South Africa is life-of-the-author plus 50 years. But the US is pressuring South Africa to extend the term to life-plus-70. Since the US is a net exporter of copyrighted media, like songs, books, and movies, US copyrights earn billions in revenue yearly. The US wants to prolong this trade imbalance as long as possible and deny foreigners free access to older US works.

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ARIPO Model Copyright Law: How Does It Score?

Posted by | Mar 9, 2020 |

[Electronic Information for Libraries] In October 2019, the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) released a new Model Law on Copyright and Related Rights. EIFL reviewed the ARIPO Model Law against EIFL’s ‘Core Library Exceptions Checklist’ that sets out provisions that every copyright law should have to support modern library activities and services.

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Germany sets bad example with the proposed implementation of the new education exception

Posted by | Mar 2, 2020 | , ,

[Teresa Nobre] A few weeks ago, the German government shared its proposal for the implementation of some of the provisions of the new Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, including the new EU education exception (Article 5 in the final version of the Directive). Similarly to what we did with the Dutch proposal, we will provide here an overview of the German proposal to implement locally the new exception. This is part of our effort to track how countries across Europe implement this mandatory exception to copyright for educational purposes.

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Dissecting the ISOC/PIR/Ethos Transaction

Posted by | Feb 25, 2020 | ,

[Benjamin Leff] Significant concern and confusion has been generated by the relatively recent announcement by the Internet Society (“ISOC”) that it will “sell” its subsidiary, Public Interest Registries (“PIR”), to the private equity firm Ethos Capital for more than 1.1 billion dollars. Among other things, PIR operates the .ORG domain registry, which generates tens of millions of dollars of revenue every year. ISOC is a nonprofit charity under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, as is PIR.

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