In a recent decision of the D.C. Circuit, in American Society for Testing and Materials v. PublicResource.org, the Court affirmed the District Court’s finding that the publishing of the Code of Federal Regulations online...
Read MoreBy Viviana Rangel – Patricia Díaz The Latin American Alliance for Fair Access to Knowledge highlights in an article for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) blog the critical role of copyright in enabling efficient AI...
Read MoreVyas discusses copyright’s “balance” metaphor, alleged to have originated in the 1785 British case Sayre v. Moore. This paper aims to contribute to the exploration of the genealogy of this concept in copyright, especially in the...
Read MoreKlosek highlights the challenges faced by libraries in the United States, such as not having enough bargaining power to retain their rights when negotiating with vendors for digital scholarly content, and inability to preserve...
Read MoreThe article titled ‘SA’s new copyright bills could sink Agoa – Contentious laws could ‘substantially lower’ protections,’ published in The Sunday Times on July 30, 2023, prompted surprise due to its assertions. While...
Read More[Ruwan Fernando] Apart from the basic statutory definition in section 65 of the Intellectual Property Act of Sri Lanka, there do not appear to be any detailed statutory guidelines or judicial decisions to provide any framework for the assessment of inventive step in Sri Lanka. The current statutory definition is highly insufficient to evaluate the standard of obviousness in relation to biotechnological and pharmaceutical claims based on a combination or modification of a prior art reference.
Read MorePIJIP Director Sean Fiil-Flynn and North-West University Professor Klaus Beiter submitted comments to the U.S. Treade Representative related to the annual review of the eligibility of sub-Saharan African countries to receive the benefits of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Their submission counters claims made by the International Intellectual Property Alliance regarding South Africa’s compliance with international copyright treaties.
Read More[Public Citizen Press Release] Colombia will soon decide whether to authorize price-cutting generic competition with a critical patented AIDS drug, directly challenging pharmaceutical industry power under a new health ministry resolution in one of the hemisphere’s most influential states. In anticipation of the decision, https://www.citizen.org/article/letter-to-colombias-minister-of-health-supporting-colombias-right-to-issue-a-compulsory-license-for-hiv-treatment-dolutegravir/ Colombian Minister of Health Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo to support expanding access to dolutegravir, calling the move a “stand for health justice.”
Read More[Guillermo Rodrigo Corredor] The technological stocktaking for developing countries after the pandemic is quite ambiguous. Although the crisis was stopped using state-of-the-art vaccines that reached the most disadvantaged and remote places in record times, effective access to the new technologies that became available to curb the pandemic is, at least for the time being, less spectacular.
Read More[Katherine Klosek] This month, the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) issued principles to guide policymakers in their conversations around copyright law and AI. LCA is the voice of the library community on copyright policy; its members—the American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL)—represent over 300,000 information professionals and thousands of libraries. The LCA principles hold that US copyright law is fully capable of addressing questions about AI-generated outputs.
Read More[Electronic Information for Libraries] EIFL and the international library, archives and museum communities have called on WIPO to finalize the new Toolkit on Preservation (document SCCR/43/4) without making any further changes to the text. The call was made in response to an invitation to delegations at WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR/43) to provide written comments on the Toolkit.
Read More[Shweta Mohandas] Day 1: Member states delivered opening statements and deliberated on the progress, substantive provisions, and method of work on the draft broadcasting treaty text. This blog post summarises positions and contentions that supported: 1)The need for balance between rights of broadcasters and that of users and researchers 2) Questions around fixation and signal piracy 3) Need for consensus and towards a diplomatic conference.
Read More[Teresa Hackett] A major conference co-organized by EIFL, with national and international partners, took place in South Africa on 23-27 January 2023. ‘A Right to Research in Africa? A Week of Debates on Copyright and Access to Knowledge’ was attended by over 280 legal academics, researchers, librarians, policy-makers and Geneva-based diplomats from over a dozen countries in Africa and beyond. It was the first time these diverse groups, connected by a common interest in copyright, came together to hear and to learn from each other about the copyright framework needed to support modern research.
Read More[Office of Senator Pramila Jayapal] U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Kathi Vidal, Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), calling on USPTO to take immediate action and use its existing administrative authorities to help lower drug prices and hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for anti-competitive business practices. The lawmakers outline six specific actions that the USPTO should take.
Read More[Teresa Hackett] The 43rd session of WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), that sets international copyright law and policy, took place in Geneva from 13 – 17 March 2023. More than 35 civil society advocates from five continents (Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America), members of the recently formed coalition on Access to Knowledge (A2K), participated in the meeting. The results were positive. I was there throughout the week representing EIFL with Dick Kawooya, University of South Carolina, USA, and expert advisor Professor Anthony Kakooza, Makerere University, Uganda. Here are the highlights.
Read More[Desmond Oriakhogba] In October 2021, I wrote about the Nigerian copyright law reform process… The reform process is now complete with the recent assent to the Bill, as the Copyright Act 2022, by the Nigerian President. The Act introduces a new vista in Nigerian copyright law as it repeals the Copyright Act 2004. How can libraries in Nigeria benefit from the Copyright Act 2022?
Read More[Letter endorsed by 208 Civil Society groups] We write to you as representatives of health organisations, patient groups, civil society and community organisations from across the globe to raise concerns over the negotiations between the UK and India on an ongoing free trade agreement. The leaked text of a chapter on Intellectual Property (IP) presents serious challenges to access to pharmaceutical products globally. While we recognise that the leaked text may not reflect the current state of demands from the UK on this topic, the lack of transparency leaves us without assurances that all damaging provisions will be removed from the list of demands your team is putting forward.
Read More[Joint statement endorsed by 11 Kenyan Civil Society Organizations] This statement is in reference to the Statement on the Kenya – United States First Round of the Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership Talks… without endorsing the negotiations, we would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Ministry for ensuring that intellectual property is not one of the identified areas of negotiation. We would like to urge the Ministry to ensure that this position is maintained throughout these negotiations.
Read More[Electronic Information for Libraries] Access to knowledge for millions of people around the world who are blind or otherwise print disabled continued to grow in 2022 with eight more countries – including three EIFL partner countries – joining the Marrakesh Treaty for persons with print disabilities, administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Read More[Faith Mutizira] Without treatment, Cystic Fibrosis patients often die in infancy, and their life expectancy is just 20 years in South Africa… A new class of medicines has revolutionised treatment and significantly extended the life expectancy of patients in several high-income countries. However, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, an American company, holds intellectual property (IP) monopolies on all of these drugs – known as CFTR modulators. The extremely high prices they set on elexacaftor/ivacaftor/tezacaftor (Trikafta/Kaftrio) drugs have led to global controversy and huge inequalities of access… Cheri Nel, a South African CF patient, submitted papers to the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg seeking a compulsory licence – a form of IP flexibility – on Trikafta.
Read More
Comments on: Civil Society Documents Comments on: industry | infojustice