Here is the REVISED agenda for the Special 301 hearing on February 24. Public Citizen has been added to the list of witnesses, and USTR now lists the names of the speakers for the various trade associations. Unlike recent years, the level of participation by major trade organizations is significant.

SPECIAL 301 PUBLIC HEARING
February 24, 2014 – 10:00 a.m.

Office of the United States Trade Representative
1724 F Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20508

The Special 301 Hearing is open to the public. Members of the press are welcome to attend.

The following WTO airgram WTO/AIR/4240/REV.1 (14 February 2014) contains the agenda for the upcoming WTO Council for TRIPS meeting to be held in Geneva from Tuesday, 25 February 2014 to Wednesday, 26 February 2014.

Brian Arthur Pomper is a partner at the law firm of Akin Gump.

Mr. Pomper formerly served as chief international trade counsel to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). In that role, he was responsible for advising Chairman Baucus and other members of the Senate Finance Committee on all aspects of the Committee’s international trade and economic agenda.

The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) submission (7 February 2014, Docket USTR-2013-0040) to USTR's 2014 Special 301 Review contains a section on plain packaging policies in the context of the protection of trademarks.

The Alliance for Fair Trade with India (AFTI) was created in June 2013, to lobby for "increased action to address the erosion of intellectual property rights ("IPR") in India." According to the group, it is "comprised of organizations representing a range of U.S. industries adversely impacted by India's troubling and frequently discriminatory policies, including manufacturing, agriculture, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals and beyond."

A February 7, 2014 Special 301 submission from the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) asks USTR to bring trade sanctions against China for granting and enforcing "junk patents." The NFTC also wants patent enforcement to be strickly a private civil remedy (Contrast to the USTR demands that countries implement linkage between drug registration and patents), and complains about China rules that would require employers to more fairly compensation the Chinese inventors they

Attached in the February 7, 2014, KEI Special 301 Submission.

KEI was a web page with more context on the Special 301 reports, including links to several submissions, and all Special 301 Reports from 1989 to 2013 (all that exist), here: http://keionline.org/ustr/special301

On January 21, 2014, Ketaki Gokhale of Bloomberg published a story in Businessweek on disputes over drug patents. The story closed with a rather sinister quote attributed to Bayer CEO Marijn Dekkers, "We did not develop this medicine for Indians.

Next week, the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) will hold a two-day hearing on "Trade, Investment, and Industrial Policies in India: Effects on the US Economy." The first session will take place Wednesday, February 12, 2014 at 1:00pm and the second session will convene on Thursday, February 13, 2014 at 9:30am. Both sessions will be held at the ITC in the Main Hearing Room (room 101) at 500 E Street SW, Washington, DC.

According to a press release issued by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on 6 December 2013, four candidatures for the post of Director General were received before the deadline for nominations (5 PM, 6 December 2013) expired.

The WIPO press release noted that,

The candidates are (in alphabetical order of names of candidates): Mr. Francis Gurry (Australia), Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama (Nigeria), Mr. Jüri Seilenthal (Estonia), and Mr. Alfredo Suescum (Panama).

It is crunch time for WIPO's Intergovernmental Committee on Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC). The 26th session meets from 3-7 February 2014 in Geneva. This week's session will focus on setting international norms for the protection of genetic resources against misappropriation and resolving two key areas of divergence: 1) the nature of the instrument and 2) the disclosure of origin requirement.

On Friday, 31 January 2014 (6:30 PM Geneva time) the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) resumed in plenary mode to discuss the facilitator's text (Mr. Victor Portelli, Australia) on the future work of this committee including activities on 1) Exceptions and Limitations to Patent Rights, 2) Quality of Patents, including Opposition Systems, 3) Patents and Health, 4 Confidentiality of communications between clients and their patent advisors and 5) Transfer of Technology.

20TH Session of the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents

Statement by Kenya

Agenda Item No. 8: Patents and Health, 28th January 2014

Thank you Mr. Chairman for giving Kenya the floor.

Kenya supports the statement made by Algeria on behalf of the African Group and the proposal put forward by the Group and the DAG.

KEI Intervention at SCP20 on Patents and Health

28 January 2014

Thank you Chair.

During heated discussions on the topic of access to essential medicines at the 134th session of the World Health Organization's Executive Board, India delivered the following statement on Thursday, 23 January 2014 expressing solidarity with the Republic of South Africa in light of the Pharmagate exposé.