At a June 28, 2010 Geneva workshop on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Dr. Zhao Hong, from the Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the World Trade Organization, distributed a proposal that was prepared for the June 8-9, 2010 meeting of the WTO TRIPS Council:

Decisions to be taken

Decision of the TRIPS Council on the Relationship between the TRIPS Agreement and Intellectual Property Provisions of bilateral, plurilteral Trade Agreeements

Members,

The attached table, prepared as a collaboration between KEI and the WBU, provides a comparison of the four proposals being discussed this week at the WIPO SCCR 20, as regards to the provisions about access to copyrighted works for persons with disabilities. The African Group proposal includes additional issues, but in this table, we only examine those that relate specifically to persons with disabilities.

The announcement this week that Al and Tipper Gore have separated brought back a number of memories. I first worked with Al Gore's office in 1990, when I was an employee of the Center for the Study of Responsive Law, working with the American Library Association (ALA) and other library groups to overturn a Reagan era policy to privatize the distribution of government databases. Among other things, I had worked with Representative Charlie Rose to introduce a bill in the House of Representatives to create an online distribution system at the Government Printing Office (GPO).

On May 27, 2010, the US government presented to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), a proposal for a "Consensus Instrument" for persons with disabilities related to reading printed publications.

I plan to write up a more detailed analysis of the WIPO open ended consultation on the treaty for persons who are blind or have other disabilities. I did want to make a few quick notes, however.

I was recently asked the following question:

Jamie
What is your view on the treatment of prize funds? By all standards it is treated as a radical off the wall proposal when in fact it is market based. Why is there so much resistance?

My response was as follows:

The World Health Assembly (WHA) has just adopted a new resolution on the "Establishment of a Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Finance and Coordination." The resolution is just over 4 pages. It represents a dramatic response to the earlier WHO Expert Working Group (EWG), by

1. calling for a more member state driven role in establishing the membership of the group,
2. focusing extensively by the need to deepen the analysis,

Dr. Mary Moran was a member of the WHO Expert Working Group on R&D financing. According to one WHO official, she was also hired by the World Health Organization to write key sections of the report, managed the selection criteria, ended up giving her own proposal the highest rating, and was asked by the WHO to address the May 13th consultations with WHO member states. Yesterday Dr. Moran approached me in part to ask that she not be identified as an employee of the George Institute.

Last evening the Global Health Council (GHC) and the Global Health Forum (GHF) co-hosted an event on funding R&D for neglected diseases. The event was one of several hosted by the GHC at the posh Intercontinental Hotel.

A "proposal" for PDP funding was presented by Novartis, IAVI and Mary Moran. Called PDP+, it was an attempt to "merge" three different proposals that were endorsed by the WHO Expert Working Group (EWG).

USTR has released its 2010 Special 301 list. Closely following the IIPI and the PhRMA asks, the Special 301 Priority Watch List countries are: Algeria, Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia, Thailand, and Venezuela. Among high income countries, Finland, Norway and Spain made the Watch list this year. Sweden was off.

On April 21, 2010, an official version of the consolidated negotiating text of the proposal Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was published. Next Wednesday, April 28, 2010, the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) will host a series of roundtable discussions about the new ACTA text at the US Department of commerce, Washington, DC from 9am to 3pm.

This is an important statement by Senator Ron Wyden, the Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness. He mentions the importance of transparency in giving the public an opportunity to "understand and shape" the agreement, and he warns that a "poorly constructed agreement could be harmful to consumers’ ability to use the Internet and could stifle the type of innovation needed to create new American jobs."

Today the first public draft of the ACTA text was released. A copy is available here. Earlier leaked versions of the text, which include country positions, are the January 18, 2010 consolidated text, a February 2010 EU memorandum of the selected sections, and seven documents from 2008.

Briefing on the Report of the WHO Expert Working Group on R&D Financing

19 April, 2010
Geneva, Switzerland
Rue de Lausanne 78, Salle LEH
Médecins Sans Frontières

The WHA Executive Board (EB) has been asked to submit to the 2010 World Health Assembly (WHA) a report by the the WHO Expert Working Group on R&D Financing. This report was presented to the WHO EB in January 2010. A meeting of the EB to consider the report will be held on May 13, 2010.

The briefing on Monday April 19 will review the following topics.

Program

9:30am – 10:00am

KEI has issued a new research note, Comments on ACTA Provisions on Injunctions and Damages, KEI Research Note 2010:1, dated April 6, 2010.