Flurry of upcoming meetings at international organizations in Geneva (WHO, WIPO and WTO)

The final stretch of 2009 ushers in a host of meetings at Geneva based institutions including the WIPO Advisory Committee on Enforcement, the WIPO Committee on Development and Intellectual Property, the WTO Ministerial, the WHO Expert Working Group and the Standing Committee on Copyright. To keep abreast of the hive of activity emanating from WIPO, WHO and WTO, here is a roadmap to keep track of the various meetings.

November 2, 2009
African-Arab Seminar on Copyright Limitations and Exceptions: Addressing the Needs of Affected Constituencies

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Speech of Mike Foster, UK Minister for International Development at launch of Industry Government Forum on Access to Medicines

On October 12, 2009, the “Industry Government Forum on Access to Medicines” (IGFAM) was launched. The UK Minister for International Development, MP Mike Foster made a a speech to launch this initiative which is reproduced below.

Presentations were also made by Pfizer (Ponni Subbiah), GSK (Abbas Hussain), Rajiv Venkayya (Gates Foundation), Prashant Yadav (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Suerie Moon (Research Fellow and Doctoral Candidate, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University).

Continue Reading

Uncategorized
6

Sun’s “Project Peter” – a plan to migrate Oracle users to MySQL

Distributed earlier on Wikileaks, this is reportedly is an internal Sun document, discussing a strategy to migrate Oracle users to MySQL.

“Project Peter is an internal effort to assist Sun / MySQL customers in migrating from Oracle to MySQL by offering them a comprehensive solution that consists of Professional Services, Best Practices, and a set of approved third party migration tools and utilities that will enable them to move to MySQL in a way that is as easy as possible.”

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

KEI, Richard Stallman, ORG, letter to European Commission opposing Oracle acquisition of MySQL assets from Sun

KEI, Richard Stallman, ORG, letter to European Commission opposing Oracle acquisition of MySQL assets from Sun The following is a letter that KEI, Richard Stallman and ORG have sent to the European Commission, asking the European Commission to prevent Oracle… Continue Reading

White House shares the ACTA Internet text with 42 Washington insiders, under non disclosure agreements

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.

Background

Since ACTA was first announced, KEI has pressed the negotiating governments to provide more transparency, including recently, for example

Uncategorized

Comments on inadequacy of voluntary measures to ensure equal access to copyrighted works for persons with reading disabilities

In discussions about a possible WIPO Treaty for persons who are blind or have other reading disabilities, there have been suggestions by some that voluntary licensing by rights holders presents a sufficient solution to the problem. I studied several publications since 1985 to take a closer look at this viewpoint and find out what were the common perceptions.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized