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.
The following is the statement that the United States asked be included in the record for Agenda item 5 (General Statements) of the 2009 WIPO General Assembly.
AGENDA ITEM 5: General Statements
BACKGROUND:
This is a semi-live blog that will be edited during the day.
It’s Wed, September 23rd, and WIPO is winding up a relatively boring two days of a high level Ministerial segment. Many delegates felt this was poorly organized, with notices going out fairly late, and not much preliminary work or focus. Tomorrow begins the more substantive agenda.
Every year at the end of September, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) holds a General Assembly (GA). The GA hears reports from all WIPO committees, approves budgets and top staff appointments, and sets the agenda for the next year. This year’s GA started today, with a large number of patent and copyright office heads, trade negotiators and NGOs in attendance.