Search Results for: copyright

When I first heard David Mann representing the World Blind Union at the information session of November 2003 SCCR, call for the “creation of international agreements which would allow the unhindered transfer of accessible material created in one country to blind and partially sighted people in another country”, I did not know that this issue had been the subject of a WIPO/UNESCO report in 1983, which had then proposed Model Provisions Concer Continue Reading →

KEI has access to a recent draft of ACTA. Chapter One, Section B of the agreement provides for “General Definitions.” It is interesting that the term “counterfeits” does not have a general definition. The ten defined terms include:

• days
• intellectual property (See below)
• Council (ACTA Oversight Council)
• measure
• person (natural or juridical)
• right owner (includes federation or assicaitons that have legal standing or authoirty to assert rights)

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(Updated March 17, 2010, 12pm).

KEI has learned that the European Union has proposed language in the ACTA negotiations to require criminal penalties for “inciting, aiding and abetting” certain offenses, including “at least in cases of willful trademark counterfeiting and copyright or related rights piracy on a commercial scale.”

The EU proposal is reported on a recent (but still secret) version of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement Consolidated Text, and reads as follows:

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See update at the end. ———-

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In a stunning 633 to 13 vote, the EU Parliament voted for a resolution on ACTA that addresses a wide range of criticisms that civil society groups have made of the process and substance.

The KEI statement on the EU vote follows:

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The United States Patent and Trademark Office has a joint program with Pfizer to fund and manage seminars in India on “misconceptions of evergreening” and “the importance of regulatory data protection and patent linkage.” KEI has submitted a FOIA request to USPTO on this topic, and received a small installment of documents on Friday. Attached to this blog are 4 pages of documents that we received from two meetings held in Mumbai, India on September 9, 2009. Ten journalists and 15 NGOs attended the meetings. Continue Reading →

Next week (March 8-12) delegates from various developing countries will gather in Washington, DC for a week long “INTERNATIONAL TRAINING FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND COUNTRIES IN TRANSITION ON EMERGING ISSUES IN COPYRIGHT AND RELATED RIGHTS AND ISSUES PERTAINING TO BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED PERSONS” co-organised by the US Copyright Office and WIPO. We hope that at least 6 Myths about the treaty for people with disabilities proposed by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay will be clearly debunked once and for all during the training.

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The ties between Universities and businesses are often complex and blurred. Private companies or trade associations fund research and seminars, and have consulting relationships with faculty members, trying to shape public policy and judicial decisions on a wide range of issues. A particularly interesting industry/university connection concerns something called the “India Project,” that is associated with the George Washington University (GWU) Law School.

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On January 6, 2010, Senator Ron Wyden sent a letter to the USTR asking a number of questions about the U.S. negotiating objectives in ACTA. On February 28, 2010, USTR responded. The USTR response focused mostly on the official U.S. “asks,” rather than the state of the negotiating text, which also reflects also the views of other parties. For this reason, the USTR letter to Wyden only tells part of the story about what ACTA may do.

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On 12 February 2010, the Council of the European Union distributed a table drawn up by the Commission Services, outlining the positions of various counties regarding civil enforcement and the special requirements relating to the Internet. A copy of this 44 page document was leaked on March 1, 2010, and is attached to this blog. A text version of the table is available from swpat.org.

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