During heated discussions on the topic of access to essential medicines at the 134th session of the World Health Organization’s Executive Board, India delivered the following statement on Thursday, 23 January 2014 expressing solidarity with the Republic of South Africa in light of the Pharmagate exposé.
This is the English translation of the intervention delivered by the South Centre on Thursday, 23 January 2014 at the 134th session of the World Health Organization’s Executive Board expressing solidarity with the Government of the Republic of South Africa following the Pharmagate exposé.
Thank you, Madam President, for giving us the floor.
On Thursday, 23 January 2014, Malebona Precious Matsoso (Director General of the South African National Department of Health) delivered the the following intervention at the 134th session of the World Health Organization’s Executive Board under agenda item 9.7 on Access to essential medicines in response to the recent Pharmagate imbroglio.
Today Senators Bacus and Hatch introduced fast track legislation in the Senate. The words transparent or transparency appear 17 times in the 107 page bill, but only twice in connection with “Trade Institution Transparency.”
The Licensing Executives Society International, Inc. (LESI) is convening its annual Global Technology Impact Forum (GTIF) at the headquarters of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) from 20 to 21 January 2014 in Geneva, Switzerland. Although this international forum is hosted in Room A at WIPO headquarters, this event (at the time of publication of this blog) does not appear on the calendar of WIPO events for January 2014. Continue Reading
The first significant negotiation on the WIPO broadcast treaty took place in December 2013, and negotiations will continue at the SCCR during a meeting of April 28 to May 2. This is a Timeline of WIPO negotiations on the Treaty.
The Current working draft of the treaty is SCCR/24/10 Corr. (Link here).
29 organizations and more than 70 individuals signed on to the final letter opposing copyright terms of life plus seventy years in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). A PDF version of the final letter is attached below. An earlier version of the letter with a substantial number of signatures was sent to all lead IP negotiators and all chief negotiators in the TPP on Friday, 6 December 2013, in advance of the TPP ministerial.
This is sign-on letter — Against life + 70 year copyright term in the TPP. See end of letter for details on how to sign.
<-------------------begin letter----------- December 9, 2013 Dear TPP negotiators, In a December 7-10 meeting in Singapore you will be asked to endorse a binding obligation to grant copyright protection for 70 years after the death of an author. We urge you to reject the life + 70 year term for copyright. Continue Reading
Introduction
This note looks at the TPP, ACTA and TRIPS provisions on injunctions, and finds the TPP text unclear, as regards the possibility of exceptions to the obligation to make injunctions available in cases in of infringements. We have asked USTR and USPTO to clarify this issue.
Discussion
The TRIPS text on injunctions reads as follows:
Section 2: civil and administrative procedures and remedies
Article 44 – Injunctions.KEI: WIPO should update 1976 Tunis Model Law on Copyright for Developing Countries
The twelfth session of the WIPO’s Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) is taking place from 18 November 2013 to 21 November 2013. This Committee, squeezed into just four days of discussions, has a heavy workload. Continue Reading