On November 4-6, 2009, the next round of negotiations for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Negotiations (ACTA) will take place in Seoul, Korea. The following is another strange chapter in the secrecy surrounding this negotiation.
Since ACTA was first announced, KEI has pressed the negotiating governments to provide more transparency, including recently, for example
1994 Michael Widenius and David Axmark start developing MySQL 1995 Software company MySQL AB founded by Michael Widenius, David Axmark and Allan Larsson 23 May 1995 First internal release of MySQL April 1998 Michael Kunze coins the acronym LAMP for… Continue Reading
In 1985, the Executive Committee for the Berne Convention and the Intergovernmental Committee of the Universal Copyright Convention published a report by Ms Wanda Noel, a Barrister and Solicitor from Ontario, Canada, on the topic of Problems Experienced by the Handicapped in Obtaining Access to Protected Works, as Annex II to a report of an agenda item “Copyright Problems Raised by the Access by Handicapped Persons to Protected Works.”
Ms Noel’s report is 26 pages, and is a readable and concise presentation of the main issues facing the WIPO SCCR today.
USTR head Ambassador Ron Kirk made another speech on intellectual property on September 30, 2009. The text of his speech is here. Below are a few relevant quotes.
On access to medicine:
Malini Aisola has written some background on the Bilski case here. Today KEI filed a friend of the court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case. A copy of our brief as filed is available here.
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE
THE GOAL OF THE PATENT REGIME IS NOT TO REWARD INVENTORS, BUT TO ENCOURAGE PROGRESS
IGC is short for “The WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore. The IGC
was established by the WIPO General Assembly in October 2000 (document WO/GA/26/6) as an international forum for debate and dialogue concerning the interplay between intellectual property (IP), and traditional knowledge (TK), genetic resources, and traditional cultural expressions (TCEs)/(folklore).
The following is the statement read by the U.S. on the topic of the renewal of the IGC Mandate:
The following is the written statement for the record that KEI has provided to the WIPO General Assembly, on the topic of the work program for the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR).
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) recommends that the topic of the broadcast treaty be removed from the SCCR agenda, for the following reasons.
Semi live blogging, for Friday, at the WIPO 2009 General Assembly
[more from twitter: http://twitter.com/jamie_love]
In WIPO, Group B is a club of high income countries. This is the statement Group B delivered in the Agenda item for general statements, at the 2009 WIPO GA.
47th Series of Meetings of WIPO
Geneva, September 22 to October 1, 2009
Group B: opening statement
Mr. Chairman
WIPO has elected two vice-chairs for the GA, Tunisia and Turkey. Tunisia now chairing.
Chile made a very nice statement on the public domain, copyright L&E, and access to knowledge.
The Tunisia chair just ruled that NGOs cannot speak today, and may only submit written statements. We may have opportunity later this week. The excuse was the “long list” of NGOs, but that not true. There were only about 4 or 5 on the list, including KEI, TWN and the WBU.