KEI comments to WHO EWG
KEI filed comments with the WHO Expert Working Group. A copy is available here.
KEI filed comments with the WHO Expert Working Group. A copy is available here.
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.
On April 9, 2009, Peter Brantley from the Internet Archive gave a talk at KEI on the proposed “Google Book Search Copyright Class Action Settlement.” The following are my rough notes from the presentation.
Peter has been a director of the Internet Archive (IA) for about three weeks. He was accompanied by Will Rodger, a Managing Director of the Law Media Group (LMG), a firm that represents Microsoft and the IA on the Google Books settlement. Attending the event were the following persons:
On April 8, 2009, the FDA announced it had awarded Novartis a one-time priority review voucher (PRV) to use towards a future new drug application, for Coartem, a malaria drug. While the PRV was designed as an incentive to develop new drugs, Coartem was developed and put on the market outside the United States years before the PRV legislation was proposed. Continue Reading
The following is my report from the April 7, 2009 Reading Rights Coalition demonstration in front of the NYC offices of the Authors Guild, regarding text to speech for Kindle 2.
I am in Montreal right now, and missed the Right Rights Coalition demonstration at the Authors Guild. Manon, Judit and Malini from our office are in NYC at the demonstration, and said it was incredibly moving. Several people at the protest sent reports by tweeter. The most complete was probably Abraham Lloyd. This was his account, with the Tweets organized from his first to last.
In preparation for the 3rd meeting of the WIPO Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP), WIPO published a 31 page document (CDIP/3/2) on March 18, 2009 listing a roster of consultants for technical assistance the Organization employed from January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2008. This is a welcome step in providing greater transparency into WIPO’s technical assistance activities. Continue Reading
The Authors Guild is claiming text to speech functions in software programs and e-book readers violate their copyrights, and should be turned off unless they are paid more for the extra functionality. Obviously the geniuses among the Authors Guild are on to something. There are many similar areas of functionality to be exploited by the Authors Guild. Here are some thoughts on how the Guild might squeeze more money from readers, if they want to expand upon their new anti-consumer business strategy:
The groups below represent 15 million Americans who cannot read print because of blindness, dyslexia, spinal cord injury and other print disabilities. Reading disabled persons affected by the Authors’ Guild request to remove the text to speech function on Kindle 2 include school children, the elderly, professionals, university students, returning veterans, and yes, your neighbors, family members and friends.
The Summary by the Chair of the WIPO Standing Committee Committee on the Law of Patents’ (SCP) Thirteenth Session which took place in Geneva from March 23, 2009 to March 27, 2009 has been posted on the WIPO website.