This is the short briefing note that KEI is sending to TPP negotiators, on the issue of regulatory test data, which is currently a monopoly without space for exceptions, in the TPP text:
Exceptions to rights in regulatory test data
Subject: TPP, damages, US copyright law
KEI TPP Note: IP Chapter language on damages conflicts with US copyright law, and blocks reforms being considered by the USPTO Green Paper
20 November 2013
KEI Comments on the August 30, 2013 version of the TPP IP Chapter
For more information, contact James Love, mailto:james.love@keionline.org, mobile +1.202.361.3040.
In a decision dated November 1, 2013, and signed by NIH Director Francis Collins, the NIH has rejected the 2012 petition to the NIH to uses its powers under the Bayh-Dole Act to protect U.S. consumers from high prices and restrictive licensing of NIH funded inventions.
 |
| The letter opposing the treaty for the blind was signed by TABC Director General Tim Bennett |
We just ran across this mean spirited letter by the Trans-Atlantic Business Council (TABC), a group that describes itself as follows:
The October 25, 2012 NIH March-In Request for ritonavir is now more than one year old, and the NIH has not decided to grant a hearing or reject the petition.
More information about the March-In request is available here:
https://www.keionline.org/2012ritonavir
In 1998 a treaty on R&D went into force between the United States and the European Communities. The “Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the Government of the United States of America – Intellectual property” sets out a list of cooperative activities in Article 4, and provides an appendix addressing the intellectual property rights that come from those collaborations.
USPTO has confirmed that on October 2, 2013, the United States has signed the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled. The U.S. signing, which was not accompanied by a press release, took place on the last day of the WIPO General Assembly, and one day after the United States government began to shut down non-essential operations as a consequence of disputes over the Affordable Care Act.
We sent this letter to the Hill today.
October 8, 2013
Dear Senators Reid and McConnell, Representatives Boehner and Pelosi,
We are writing to ask that Congress hold a hearing on the failure of the NIH to exercise its authority to protect the public from abuses in federally funded inventions.
Since the passage of the BayhDole Act in 1980, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has never granted a petition to “march in” to permit third parties to use patents invented on federally funded research in response to abuses of the patent rights.