Month: December 2009

World Intellectual Property Organization
Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR)
Nineteenth Session
December 14-18, 2009

United States of America Statement on Copyright Exceptions and Limitations for Persons with Print Disabilities

As Delivered
December, 2009

Geneva, Switzerland

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The United States is proud to have a series of specific exceptions and limitations in our copyright law, including for education, libraries, and persons with print disabilities.

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On Monday, December 14, the UNITAID board passed a resolution to establish a Patent Pool for AIDS medicines. The decision caped a dramatic debate on the proposal, which had been before UNITAID since 2006, and had been discussed in other fora since 2002. The following is a statement by KEI on the UNITAID decision, followed by background on the UNITAID patent pool proposal, including a copy of the UNITAID press release.

Statement of James Love, Director of KEI, on the UNITAID Patent Pool:

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This is day one of a five day meeting of the WIPO SCCR, being held in Geneva. The main topic of discussion this week will be copyright limitations and exceptions.

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There will be new participants at the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (Nineteenth Session) Geneva, December 14 to 18, 2009.

Here is the lists of non-governmental organizations, which have requested to be granted observer status in sessions of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), according to SCCR’s Rules of Procedure (see document SCCR/1/2, paragraph 10).

• African Union of the Blind (AFUB)
• All India Confederation of the Blind (AICB)
• Asociación Civil Tiflonexos – Biblioteca Tiflolibros (Tiflolibros),

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We are distributing this letter (in English and Spanish, with Tiflolibros Argentina) to writers, journalists and authors who support the World Blind Union WIPO treaty proposal to improve access to books in formats accessible to people who are blind, visually impaired or have other disabilities. If you are a writer and you are interested in signing it, contact judit.rius@keionline.org

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On Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 10:42PM (EST), the site Wikileaks, posted this pithy entry on Twitter: “Big Pharma infiltrates WHO Expert Working Group process; WikiLeaks infiltrates Big Pharma“. Continue Reading →

On December 7, 2009, Ambassador Ron Kirk faxed a two page letter to Senator Bernie Sanders. (Page 1, Page 2). The letter made no concessions, and broke no new ground, as USTR continues to stonewall its critics on the transparency issue.

Kirk was responding to this November 23, 2009 letter from Senators Sanders and Brown to Kirk.

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In a letter to the European Commission defending the Oracle acquisition of MySQL, Eben Moglen makes the following argument.

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In a recent statement to Wired, USTR tried to justify the secrecy of the ACTA negotiations as follows:

The Administration also recognizes that confidentiality in international negotiations among sovereign entities is the standard practice to enable officials to engage in frank exchanges of views, positions, and specific negotiating proposals, and thereby facilitate the negotiation and compromise that are necessary to reach agreement on complex issues.

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