CSC written intervention on future work at WIPO SCCR

Find below Civil Society Coalition (CSC) written intervention to the 18th Session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights. The intervention was submitted in Spanish by Pablo Lecuona, director and co-funder of Tiflolibros, a library for blinds in Argentina, and CSC fellow during the 18th Session of the WIPO SCCR.

Comentarios de la Civil Society Coalition (CSC)

Mi nombre es Pablo Lecuona y soy director y co-fundador de la biblioteca para ciegos, Tiflolibros en Argentina.

Continue Reading

2009: PAHO dispute over standards for transparency of economic data for pharmaceutical industry

Today the executive board of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is considering a proposal to have more transparency of the economics of the pharmaceutical industry. (I have separately blogged about this on the Huffpo). Specifically, an amendment offered to a PAHO EB resolution on research, proposed the following:

Continue Reading

Unpacking the WIPO SCCR Limitations and Exceptions (to copyright) agenda

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) divides its norm setting work among several committees. The 17th meeting of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) met last week, and considered several topics, including the first in-depth effort to consider a work program on limitations and exceptions for copyright. This work program, first proposed formally by Chile (SCCR/13/5) among WIPO member states, is a work in progress. Continue Reading

WIPO’s press release for SCCR 17, what isn’t said says something

Two quick points about the WIPO press release for SCCR 17:

1. The press release does not mention the term “trans-border” (a reference to export and import), even though this was referred to in the context of L&E for distance education in the SCCR conclusions. Clearly the EU opposition to the New Zealand text on “application to the international exchange of materials in accessible formats” made an impression on the WIPO Secretariat.

Continue Reading

SCCR draft conclusions — influenced by right-owners, ignore WBU proposal

WIPO has just released at 8:50 am, “draft conclusions of the SCCR.”

The section on limitations and exceptions was good in some areas, for example, when the committee “stressed the importance of the forthcoming study on exceptions and limitations for the benefit of educational activities, including distance education and the trans-border aspect therof, and that it should include developing and least developed countries.”

Continue Reading

WIPO SCCR/17 day one, on copyright L&E

I’m in Geneva at WIPO for the 17th SCCR meeting. The first two days have presentations of four WIPO studies of copyright limitations and exceptions. Each study gets a half day. The first presentation was by Sam Ricketson.

WIPO Study on Limitations and Exceptions of Copyright and Related Rights in the Digital Environment, (SCCR/9/7), April 5, 2003. prepared by Mr. Sam Ricketson, Professor of Law, University of Melbourne and Barrister, Victoria, Australia

The Ricketson presentation was very clear.

Continue Reading

WIPO: Under Siege?

Walking around the marbled corridors of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) during its 43rd General Assembly, one cannot help but feel a palpable sense of an Organization under siege. Heightened security detail, ostensibly for the protection of the institution and the assembled delegates, was referred by one insider as justification for WIPO maintaining the current levels for patent filing fees.

Continue Reading