Senator Angus King proposed an amendment to National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would require the Department of Defense (DoD) to authorize third parties to use inventions that benefited from DoD research funding, when prices exceed the median price charge in the seven largest economies with per capita incomes at least half the per capita income in the United States.
On July 4th, 2017, Andrew Goldman delivered Knowledge Ecology International’s intervention on patents at health at the 26th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP).
KEI Statement on Patents and Health
WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents – 26th SessionJuly 4th, 2017
Since the African Group and Development Agenda Group first tabled their proposal on a work program on patents and health in May 2011, much has happened.
On June 23, 2017, Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representatives Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Richard Neal (D-MA) wrote to President Trump about “trade and investment barriers” in India. The four members of Congress are respectively the chair and ranking members of the Senate Finance and the House Ways and Means Committee.
On March 31st, KEI joined Prescription Justice, EFF, and Public Citizen at RightsCon 2017 to discuss the issues of sales of medication over the Internet. I was in attendance on KEI’s behalf; Gabe Levitt represented Prescription Justice; Jeremy Malcolm presented for EFF; and Burcu Kilic was there for Public Citizen. It was one of the few panels at RightsCon dedicated to medicines/health.
After the session, the panelists convened to draft an agreement on a series of overarching principles that may help guide policy and shape the conversation.
The latest version of the USTR NAFTA renegotiation hearings schedule is out. USTR has a page for the NAFTA hearings, here, which now has the a link to the witness schedule.
There are 26 panels of witnesses over 2.5 days. Doing the math, each witness seems to have less than 10 minutes, including questions from the panel.
The United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) convened its 35th session from 6 June 2017 to 23 June 2017. During HRC35 (which took place in Room XX of the UN Palais des Nations in Geneva), a group of 21 countries tabled a resolution entitled, “The right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. Continue Reading
As reported by Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), on 6 June 2017, the World Trade Organization (WTO), published a paper tabled by Brazil, China, Fiji, India, and South Africa, entitled “Intellectual Property and the Public Interest.” In their communication (IP/C/W/630), the proponents called for a series of discussions at the WTO TRIPS Council on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest. Continue Reading
On 31 May 2017, the delegations of Brazil, China, Fiji, India, and South Africa tabled a paper to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) TRIPS Council entitled “Intellectual Property and the Public Interest.” In their communication (IP/C/W/630), the proponents called for a series of discussions at the WTO TRIPS Council on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest. Brazil, China, Fiji, India, and South Africa proposed compulsory licensing as the first theme of IP and the Public Interest discussions at the TRIPS Council meeting in June 2017.
In the run up to the 70th World Health Assembly (22 May 2017 – 31 May 2017), the World Health Organization prepared a document (A70/INF./4, 16 May 2017) entitled, Voluntary contributions by fund and by contributor, 2016. Total voluntary contributions to WHO in 2016 amounted to $1,717,219,177 which represented a dip from the 2015 figure of $1,836,970,206.
Here is a non-exhaustive list detailing the sources of voluntary contributions to WHO and the size of their respective contributions in 2016.
Lexmark: The Supreme Court’s patent exhaustion case and parallel trade in drugs
KEI Briefing Note 2017:2. James Love. Revised 31 May 2017.