Knowledge Ecology International

At the first Internet Governance Forum launched in Athens in the winter of 2006, the prevailing perception of open standards was that of an arcane, technical subject confined to obscure standard setting organizations staffed by computer scientists, engineers and technologists. It is perhaps testament to the efforts of the Dynamic Coalition of Open Standards (DCOS), created in Athens in 2006 that open standards has come to the fore of the 2nd Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro.

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There have been many new stories about Google’s new prize for cell phone applications (Such as this one).

This is how the program is described by Google:

http://code.google.com/android/adc.html

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On September 20, the The New York Times reported on Barrick’s announcement it would offer “a $10 million prize on Wednesday to any scientist, researcher or inventor who can increase the amount of silver the company recovers from a mine in Argentina.” The rules for the prize are set out here: http://www.unlockthevalue.com/

According to Barrick,

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Tom Giovanetti kindly sent me a link to his latest NGO bashing. This one titled: “IP skeptic NGOs as Marxists.” This is his attempt to label the various public health groups as Marxists, and his brief attempt to understand or describe a February 2005 proposal for one possible approach R&D Treaty.

First, I have told Tom Giovanetti several times that while his hysterical red baiting is amusing at times, it is also sometimes offensive and boring.

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In attempting to address problems of access to medicines in developing countries, it is not productive to utilize any typology to limit the scope of diseases that are to be part of the WHO Global Strategy and Plan of Action’s focus for the next 7 years.

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I’m not sure who has been sharing this on the list, but the very worst country in the negotiations, among the 190+ members of the WHO, is, without a doubt, Sweden. Sweden has been making it very difficult for Europe to take reasonable positions in the negotiations, and Sweden is consistently taking the most extreme positions in the negotiations among the European countries, and competing with Mexico for the most anti-consumer views in the room.

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The IGWG Negotiations are coming to the end, and although it is not clear what the package the negotiators will deliver is, enough of the process has been seen to rate the performances of some of the actors.

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Tomorrow morning (Friday the 9th), the IGWG finally takes up Element 5, the intellectual property text. These are the deletions to the text being requested by Mexico.

———-
ELEMENT 3

This would include:

building innovative capacity in science and technology and traditional medicine/genetic resources, in agreement with the legislation existing in the Parties on this issues;
rational health-orientated intellectual property management. (Mexico suggest delete)

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Richard Kjeldgaard, a former Senior Counsellor in the Biotechnology and Genetic Resources Division of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and now employed by the U.S. based Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) performed his role as “bouncer” admirably today at a luncheon organized by the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

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Boletín Fármacos has asked me to write a short summary of one of KEI’s projects. I chose to present a patent pool for medical technologies related to the prevention and treatment of cancer. Please find the article below. It is also available: http://www.boletinfarmacos.org/092007/ventana_abierta.asp

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