Author: KEI Staff

KEI has asked 21 persons following the TPP IPR negotiations, what they thought of four of the USTR negotiators, including:

• Ambassador and USTR head Michael Froman,
• TPP Chief negotiator Barbara Weisel
• Assistant USTR for Intellectual Property and Innovation Stanford McCoy, and
• Deputy Assistant USTR for Intellectual Property and Innovation Probir Mehta.

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Earlier KEI published sections of the the EU India Negotiating FTA/BTIA negotiating text dealing with enforcement, along with some commentary on Article 17-31: /node/1681.

On March 28, 2013, KEI obtained another document with Article 1-5,7-8,10-33 of the negotiating next. The new text is available at /node/1691

Krista Cox will be providing her impressions here: /node/1693

Here are KEI’s quick reactions to the text.

Among the provisions in the TRIPS which protect consumers are Article 7, 8 and 40.

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On Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013, the Department of State will convene a meeting to discuss a proposal by the Hague Conference on Private International Law (“Hague Conference”) to developing a new “instrument” on the recognition and enforcement of judgments, including “new jurisdictional filters.”

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On March 12, 2012, Tedmund Wan posted a note on Joe Biden’s appointment of Steve Ricchetti, exploring potential conflicts of interest with the clients in a lobbying firm that he ran. On March 29, 2012, KEI formally asked Ricchetti to recuse himself in matters concerning his former clients. The letter follows.

29 March 2012

Steve Ricchetti
Counselor to Vice President Joe Biden
The White House
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Sally Susman of Pfizer leads the most lethal lobbying effort on drug patents and prices. She’s also a big Obama campaign fundraiser.

For several years, Pfizer has been considered a hardliner among big pharma companies on international negotiations over intellectual property rights and drug pricing. This has not changed despite the company having had three CEOs in the past five years.

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On Wednesday February 22, 2012, from 12:30pm to 2:30pm, KEI will host a roundtable discussion on international copyright negotiations. The location of the meeting will be 1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20009. There will be an opportunity to participate by telephone, via toll free calls in many countries. (To register or for details on call-in, email manon.ress@keionline.org. If you want to try to join by skype, we will do our best.)

The topics to be discussed are the following International copyright negotiations:

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Sangeeta Shashikant from TWN recently collected and published several NGO statements on the Africa IP Summit, in the TWO Info Service on Intellectual Property Issues (Feb12/03), which included a link also to a letter to WIPO signed by more than 100 NGOs. Continue Reading →