The following intervention was delivered by Brazil on behalf of the Development Agenda Group at the Forty-Second (22nd Extraordinary) Session of the WIPO General Assembly on 17 December 2012.

Yesterday I received a Samsung laptop computer running Google's Chrome OS. This is the new $249 Chromebook with an SSD drive, 2 gigs of RAM, an 11.6 inch 1366 x 768 pixels screen, and the 1.7 GHz Exynos 5200 processor. The laptop weights 2.4 pounds and has a nice usable keyboard and a well implemented trackpad. There is also the option of a model with 2 years of 3G (limited) data from Verizon, for just $329.

On 3 December 2012, the 15th round of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) began in Auckland, Newe Zealand and included, for the first time, eleven negotiating parties with the additions of Canada and Mexico more than a year after these two countries formally asked to join the negotiations. The current negotiating parties now include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam. Rumored interested countries include Japan, Thailand and South Korea.

On Monday, December 10, 2012, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) filed an amicus brief in a case before the Supreme Court of the United States involving application of the patent exhaustion doctrine to self-replicating technology. KEI filed in support of the petitioner, urging the Supreme Court to find that the patent exhaustion doctrine does in fact apply to self-replicating technology and that the patent holder's rights in the present case were exhausted with the sale of the first-generation of the technology, in this case a seed.

The United States proposal for the TPPA includes many demands that will increase intellectual property rights for rightholders. The leaked text reveals that the United States seeks to introduce numerous measures that go well beyond the requirements of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), known as TRIPS-plus provisions. Some of the areas of concern include the provisions on intellectual property enforcement.

In a press release, Johnson and Johnson "announced their intention not to enforce the patents they own and control on the antiretroviral (ARV) drug darunavir provided the darunavir product is medically acceptable and is used only in resource-limited settings," which J&J defines as the 48 UN defined Least Developed Countries plus any other country in sub-Saharan Africa. This is the KEI statement on the J&J darunavir announcement.

Around 2 am the open ended consultations on the CEWG recommendations finished their work on a report and proposed resolution, which is attached below. [See also interviews during the negotiations here: http://www.youtube.com/user/KEIWashDC/videos.]

On Tuesday, 27 November 2012, KEI filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in the case Ninestar Technology Co., et. al. v. International Trade Commission, et. al., supporting the Petitioners' petition for writ of certiorari (essentially asking the Supreme Court to agree to hear the case). This case involves the application of the patent exhaustion doctrine (also known as the first sale doctrine), specifically whether the United States applies a system of international exhaustion of rights or national exhaustion of rights.

Apparently David Kappos will be leaving the USPTO sometime early next year. Today there is much commentary from patent community giving him high marks, and I'm willing to believe there are high marks to give. But he also had some big shortcomings. Here are a few:

At WHO deliberations (26 November 2012 to 28 November 2012) on charting a path forward following the recommendations of the Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination (CEWG), Bolivia, Colombia and Thailand reiterated their political commitment supporting a binding R&D treaty.

Just before 8 p.m. on Friday evening, the 25th session of the WIPO's main committee for copyright policy, the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), completed its work and adjourned.

Some have written to ask what the Canada position is on the proposed WIPO treaty on copyright exceptions for persons who are blind or have other disabilities. For the first 3.5 days of the meeting, Canada did not say anything.

The SCCR has seems to have finished its work on the text for a possible treaty on copyright exceptions for persons who are blind or have other disabilities, and earlier than expected. The new text distributed to delegates is 25 pages long (attached below), and includes several articles with no brackets. There are many differences to be resolved. The question is, will WIPO proceed with a diplomatic conference in 2013?

Update: (revised version here)

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Yesterday they finished work on the definition of a work. Audiovisual works and related rights are out, ebooks and audio books are in.

ARTICLE A - DEFINITIONS

For the purposes of these provisions

"work"

Attached below is the November 21, 2012 version of the "REVISED WORKING DOCUMENT ON AN INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENT ON LIMITATIONS AND EXCEPTIONS FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED PERSONS/PERSONS WITH PRINT DISABILITIES."

We are interested in hearing from people on any part of the text (mailto:james.love@keionline.org).

Note that on page 9 that the brackets have been removed on the definition of "authorized entity."