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.
2009 Proposal by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay, Relating to Limitations and Exceptions: Treaty Proposed by the World Blind Union On May 25, 2009, Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay (BEP) submitted a formal proposal at the WIPO SCCR 18, asking that the… Continue Reading
At the WIPO SCP coffee break, one attendee explained to KEI that the EU has in two places, (1) the regulations on tiered pricing, and (2) the implementation of the WTO’s 30 August 2003 decision on compulsory licensing, created an exception for goods in transit to developing countries.
The following report was prepared by KEI, and reviewed by Daniel Sepulveda of USTR:
The International Bureau has released a 47-paged paper in preparation for the 13th Session of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (23 March-27 March, 2009) entitled Exclusions from patentable subject matter and exceptions and limitations to the rights (SCP/13/3).
In its introduction to the treatment of patent exceptions and public policy, the paper asserts:
From the European Parliament is a call for more transparency of ACTA documents. This is a report from Sina Amoor Pour of Sweden, posted to the A2K listserve:
The negotiating text of ACTA and many other documents, including even the lists of participants in the negotiations, are secret. The White House claims the secrecy is required as a matter of national security. But that does not mean the documents are off limits to everyone outside of the government. Hundreds of advisors, many of them corporate lobbyists, are considered “cleared advisors.” They have access to the ACTA documents.
The following discusses the 2009 PhRMA submission for the USTR Special 301 list on Thailand. Thailand is one of three Asian countries (China, Philippines and Thailand) that were singled out by PhRMA for the harshest treatment. The submission on Thailand covers several topics, including these:
One of the more aggressive PhRMA submissions to the USTR Special 301 list is the section on the Philippines. Excerpts, which are given below, illustrate the breath of PhRMA’s demands on the USTR. Continue Reading
On 18 February 2009, sixteen NGOs sent a letter to the head of the World Trade Organization regarding a series of seizures by the Dutch custom authorities of generic medicines in transit to developing countries. The letter is available at
https://www.keionline.org/misc-docs/seizures/WTO_seizures_18feb.pdf
Today, Director General Pascal Lamy responded to the letter which is available at