Obama administration blocking consensus at Human Rights Council on access to medicines resolution
In their introduction to Realizing the Right to Health, Andrew Clapham and Mary Robinson provide the following anecdote.
The run up to the 2008 election in the United States focused at one point on the nature of health care in America. During the second presidential debate, the candidates were asked the following question: “Is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility?” Senator Obama (as he then was) replied as follows:KEI Statement in Support of the Unlocking Technology Act (H.R. 1892)
Statement of Knowledge Ecology International in Support of the Unlocking Technology Act (H.R. 1892)
June 9, 2013The bipartisan Unlocking Technology Act (H.R. 1892), introduced by Representative Lofgren (D-CA) and co-sponsored by Representatives DeFazio (D-OR), Eshoo (D-CA), Holt (D-NJ), Massie (R-KY), and Polis (D-CO) takes the welcome step of scaling back the overprotection of “digital locks” and promoting consumer choice and competition.
People who oppose robust copyright exceptions for blind people (the Private Sector)
May 18, 2013 About the list. This is a work in progress. KEI has been engaged in the negotiations for a WIPO treaty on copyright exceptions for persons with disabilities since 2008. We have attended each negotiation that has been… Continue Reading
Joint Letter to the 66th World Health Assembly: Follow-up of the report of the CEWG
Joint Letter to the 66th World Health Assembly: Follow-up of the report of the CEWG
20 May 2013
Distinguished Delegate,
We urge the World Health Organization (WHO) and its Member States to exercise leadership, ambition and innovative thinking in developing new paradigms to take forward the work of the Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination (CEWG) in reconciling the objectives of stimulating medical innovation and ensuring access for all.
May 13 Brownbag lunch on WIPO treaty for blind negotiations
Note, we are adding some video clips from the meeting here:
May 13, 2013. KEI meeting on WIPO negotiations. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLw9jWaZPEpzafm6_61VtLb6aW-nFaINa
On May 13, 2013, KEI will host a 12:30 to 2:30 brown bag lunch for a discussion of the WIPO Treaty for the Blind negotiations. It will be possible to attend in person, or follow the meeting on the telephone.
Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) calls WIPO treaty for blind “dangerous precedent for other areas of IP Law”
On April 15, 2013, the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) sent a letter to Teresa Stanek Rea, the Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, setting out the IPO “concerns” about the proposed WIPO treaty for persons who are blind or visually impaired. (Copy here).
Human Rights, Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines, notes from Yale workshop
On April 26, 2013 I attended a half day meeting on “A Human Rights Approach to Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines” organized by the Yale Law School and the Yale School of Public Health. These are notes from my interventions on behalf of KEI.
1. KEI does a lot of work on intellectual property rights that has impact on human rights. We do not always give prominence to human rights law or the language of human rights, although at times and in the right context, it can be important to do so.
PhRMA press release on USTR Special 301, expresses disappointment over language for India, Canada
Below is the PhRMA press release on the Special 301 Report.
Key points in the PhRMA release:
* PhRMA “dismayed that USTR did not grant an out-of-cycle review for India.” PhRMA claims that India decisions involving German owned Bayer and Swiss owned Novartis “disproportionately impacted U.S. biopharmaceutical companies.” (Perhaps PhRMA could have said, companies that have ownership claims on the US government).
WTO: Spotlight on the United States at the Trade Policy Review (December 2012)
On 18 December 2012 and 20 December 2012, the World Trade Organization (WTO) undertook a trade policy review of the United States of America. All members of the WTO are subject to review under the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM). The questions raised by WTO Members during the US TPR touched upon on compulsory licensing (including cases of judicial compulsory licensing following eBay v. MercExchange), copyright (Golan v. Holder), the Special 301 report and the Medicines Patent Pool. On 30 April 2013, the WTO released the records of the meeting including WT/TPR/M/275. Continue Reading
Treaty for the Blind: US démarche opposes references to “fair practices, dealings or uses to meet their needs”
As mentioned in our piece, State of Play: Treaty for the Blind negotiations at the World Intellectual Property Organization, the February 2013 special session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) reached agreement on a cluster of provisions on the Treaty’s treatment of the copyright three-step test that resulted in the ARTICLE(S) section contained in SCCR/25/2/Rev. Continue Reading