[Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge (I-MAK)] The patent system is not working as intended and the public is paying the price. Astronomical prescription drug costs are straining the healthcare system and the budgets of American families and employers. Prescription drug spending has increased 60% in the last decade to over $400 billion today. The status quo is unsustainable.
Read More[Wend Wendland] On July 21, 2022, the General Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) decided that, by 2024, two diplomatic conferences should take place, one on a proposed new Design Law Treaty, and the other on genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge (TK). Diplomatic conferences are held to negotiate and adopt or revise multilateral treaties and conventions. This decision was as unexpected as it is momentous.
Read More[CCIA] A flexible copyright regime is necessary for the continued growth of the digital economy. Principles such as fair use are a cornerstone of U.S. copyright law, and industries that rely on this right are a significant contributor to the U.S. economy and exports. CCIA released a report in 2017 on the economic contribution of fair use industries which found that these industries account for 16 percent of the U.S. economy and generate $5.6 trillion in annual revenue. Fair use is also critical to activities central to new areas of innovation and cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence and text and data mining.
Read More[Aurora Plomer] Abstract: …This article’s original contribution to the existing scholarship is twofold. It shows that European States viewed patents as legal shields against foreign industrial piracy spurred by international trade fairs aimed at showcasing national industrial power and the capture of new markets. Secondly, it documents the legal malleability and indeterminacy of patent rights and the role of courts in providing further definition of these rights largely to the benefit of intellectual property (IP) holders in the nineteenth century.
Read More[Electronic Information for Libraries] At WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR/42) that took place in May 2022, the Committee agreed that the Chair would revise the Draft Text for the WIPO Broadcasting Organizations Treaty (document SCCR/42/3) based on comments, suggestions and questions from delegations. EIFL’s comments focus on Limitations and Exceptions (Article 10). To ensure fair access to copyright-protected content for social, educational and public interest reasons, EIFL calls for the significant strengthening of Article 10. Currently, there is no obligation to provide exceptions of any kind for social, educational or informational uses because Article 10 is optional, not mandatory. It doesn’t provide for exceptions that are mandatory in other treaties, such as the right of quotation and news of the day in the Berne Convention, and the making of accessible format copies in the Marrakesh Treaty.
Read More[Shirin Syed] The 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) concluded on Friday, June 17, 2022, with a “Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement”, to facilitate exportation of Covid-19 vaccines under the compulsory licence to enhance availability and accessibility for poor countries… The TRIPS Decision no longer remains an IP waiver as proposed originally by India and South Africa and 65 co-sponsors. It lacks the comprehensive measures as in the original proposal to address the concern of production and supply of Covid-19 vaccines to meet global demand, especially from lower-income countries who are deprived of their fair share of vaccines in the current pandemic.
Read More[Communia Association] This page lists the 20 policy recommendations launched in May 2022. These supersede the 14 policy recommendations that we published in 2011 and that we evaluated in 2021. The policy recommendations have been developed though a consultation process that gathered input from more than 60 academics, activists and other experts that ran from late 2021 to early 2022. This process was made possible though a generous donation by Pam Samuelson and Bob Glushko. Our policy recommendations concern themselves with measures to defend and expand the public domain, measures that protect and promote usage rights, measures to empower creators and their audiences and measures that create safeguards against copyright abuse.
Read More[Teresa Hackett] As the world moves from emergency mode to living with COVID, libraries are taking stock of the impact of the global pandemic on library services from a copyright and licensing perspective. Early results indicate that support for online education and access to knowledge fell short of what was needed during the pandemic.
Read More[Glyn Moody] One of deep-seated problems with copyright is that its supporters believe everything created should be “owned” by someone and protected from being “stolen” by others. Walled Culture has already written about how that’s a bad fit for writing music, and the NBC News site has a fascinating story about how the same issue is plaguing a very different world – that of indigenous languages (pointed out by D. J. Mary on Twitter). It concerns the Lakota language, one of many native American languages that are at risk of extinction because so few people speak them fluently. In recent years, there have been increasing efforts to create language resources from the surviving speakers, to prevent the language and its culture being lost, and to produce learning materials.
Read More[Fundación Karisma] Entre el 9 y el 13 de mayo de 2022 tuvo lugar la cuadragésima segunda sesión del Comité Permanente de Derecho de Autor y Derechos Conexos de la Organización Mundial de la Propiedad Intelectual (SCCR 42 de la OMPI). Para esta ocasión, seis organizaciones de la sociedad civil latinoamericana coordinamos acciones conformando la Alianza de la Sociedad Civil Latinoamericana para el Acceso Justo al Conocimiento. Las organizaciones con estatus de observadoras, Fundación Karisma de Colombia y Fundación Vía Libre de Argentina, en conjunto con las organizaciones que conformamos la Alianza, a saber: Datysoc de Uruguay, Derechos Digitales de Chile, Hiperderecho de Perú, IBDAutoral e InternetLab de Brasil, asistimos al SCCR 42 para presentar nuestro posicionamiento en relación con los puntos de la agenda, especialmente aquellos relacionados con la agenda de limitaciones y excepciones al derecho de autor.
Read More[Teresa Nobre] The 42nd session of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) took place from 9 to 13 May 2022 in Geneva. This was the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic started that most of the delegates were reunited in person. In 2020 and 2021, the Committee held hybrid format sessions of online and in-person participation, with most of the delegations attending remotely. The number of meetings were reduced from two regular sessions to one per year as a result and the Committee agreed not to engage in text-based negotiations during those sessions. The return to Geneva could have led one to believe that there might be a renewed interest in moving the Committee’s agenda forward. But as the days passed by, without a consensus on any agenda item, this hope faded away. Only when the session was coming to an end did the delegates finally agree on a few next steps for the two main agenda items of the Committee, in both cases falling short of the initial expectations.
Read More[Terea Hackett] The 42nd session of WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), the global forum that sets international copyright law and policy, took place in Geneva from 9 – 13 May 2022 – the first full meeting since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. EIFL was there to promote strong rights for libraries in support of access to knowledge for education, research and development. I was representing EIFL with Dick Kawooya, University of South Carolina, USA; Anthony Kakooza, Makerere University, Uganda; Desmond Oriakhogba, University of Venda, South Africa, and Awa Cissé Diouf, Universite Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), Senegal.
Read More[Deborah De Angelis] The SCCR42 took place in Geneva from May 9th to 13th, 2022, turning into an in-person meeting after the Covid pandemic, but with the possibility of remote participation as a “phygital” event… The SCCR42 agenda item 7 has been dedicated to limitations and exceptions to copyright, which has formed a core part of the agenda of the SCCR for at least 15 years. One of the goals achieved during the previous discussions is the Marrakesh Treaty in 2013 for the use of copyrighted works by people with blindness or visual impairments.
Read More[ReCreate] For our latest Copyright Corner Q&A series installment, Re:Create spoke with Sean Flynn, Director of the American University Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property. Flynn helps explain the meaning of “information justice,” the restrictions that continue to constrain research and education – even in today’s digital age – and how global IP laws impact access to the Covid vaccine. Flynn also helps readers better understand how the ability to make and use research materials is core to the freedom of expression and how copyright law can become an unjustifiable restriction without adequate exceptions.
Read More[Desmond Oriakhogba and Dick Kawooya] The African Group’s (AG) proposal on a Work Program for Copyright Exceptions and Limitations (L&Es) was item 7 on the Agenda at the 42nd Session of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (WIPO-SCCR) held from 9 to 13 May 2022. In preparation for the 42nd Session, we noted that the African Group proposal for a Work Program on L&Es “picks up on where the [WIPO-SCCR] left off in 2019, and gives a focus to its future work on important issues of access to copyrighted works for education, research and other public interest purposes”; and, if adopted, the Work Program “will set WIPO on the path of formulating norms that will position the global copyright system to withstand future pandemics”.
Read More[Anubha Sinha] Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m speaking on behalf of the Centre for Internet and Society, India. The Proposal by the African Group for a Draft work program on Exceptions and Limitations has the potential to address issues faced in the domains of access to information, culture and education, keeping in mind that there have been systemic shifts in the knowledge ecosystem since pandemic, which will endure in the long term as well.
Read More[Teresa Nobre] …There is absolutely no doubt that the restrictions copyright laws pose on access to knowledge and information condition the right to education and the right to research, and that educational and research exceptions would benefit society as a whole. That is what will determine whether teachers can show a short news report during live-streamed online classes, whether researchers can conduct medical research or track disinformation online.
Read More[Intellectual Property Institute] The first half of the event focused on the Broadcasting Treaty proposal, which SCCR first discussed more than 15 years ago. The proposal would grant new exclusive rights to broadcasting organisations, but falls short on granting the necessary exceptions and limitations in public interest. NGOs such as Communia and EIFL have harshly criticised the proposal in that regard. In the second half of the event, exceptions and limitations to copyright for educational and research institutions were the focus of the discussion. The African group of delegates prepared and presented a draft programme proposal on the issue. They drew attention to the difficulties, encountered in African educational institutions, due to copyright protection of educational materials. In addition, many African libraries mostly operate in physical form and have poor access to digital materials.
Read More[Medicines Patent Pool] WHO’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) and the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) today finalised a licensing agreement with the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the development of several innovative therapeutics, early-stage vaccines and diagnostic tools for COVID-19. The licences, which are transparent, global and non-exclusive, will allow manufacturers from around the world to work with MPP and C-TAP to make these technologies accessible to people living in low- and middle-income countries and help put an end to the pandemic. The 11 COVID-19 technologies offered under two licences include the stabilised spike protein used in currently available COVID-19 vaccines, research tools for vaccine, therapeutic and diagnostic development as well as early-stage vaccine candidates and diagnostics.
Read More[Teresa Hackett] The 42nd session of WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), the global forum that sets international copyright law and policy, takes place in Geneva from 9 – 13 May 2022. It is the first full meeting since the start of the pandemic… Three topics of high importance to libraries will be discussed during the week: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on libraries and education, a draft treaty for the protection of broadcast organizations, and an exciting new proposal for a work programme at SCCR on limitations and exceptions (L&Es) for libraries and archives, education and research.
Read More
Comments on: Civil Society Documents Comments on: industry | infojustice