These were my tweets yesterday from the Fordham/Cambridge IPR event:

# Fordham event in Cambridge, UK. Michael Keplinger from WIPO said treaty for reading disabled “would take years and not solve the problem”

# At Fordham/Cambridge IP event, Luc Devigne of DG Trade says ACTA membership will be “enlarged,” become standard for developing countries.

At the COMMUNIA workshop at the London School of Economics, I mentioned a legislative proposal from 1991 that was designed to open up and improve the management of government databases, promote open standards and interoperability, limit prices, and to give the public regular opportunities to engage agencies on policies. Here is a copy of the bill, from the 102nd Congress. In reading the bill, remember it was introduced in 1991, the same year the first web site was built at CERN, and three years before the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was created.

Thank you Mr Chair.

We take note of document 13/2’s assertion that “inherent tensions exist between patents and standards” particularly when the “implementation of a standard calls for the use of technology covered by one or more patents”.

For our detailed written comments on the issue of patents and standards we request the SCP to please consult pages 36 through 39 of Annex III of document SCP/12/3 Rev.2.

On the topic of patents and standards, we propose the following:

WIPO’s five day 13th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) began on Monday, and will go through Friday. The agenda is quite full, as the SCP will consider four important reports written by the Secretariat.

SCP/13/2: Standards and Patents
SCP/13/3: Exclusions from Patentable Subject Matter and Exceptions and Limitations to the Rights
SCP/13/4: The Client-Attorney Privilege
SCP/13/5: Dissemination of Patent Information