Knowledge Ecology International

Joint Letter to the 66th World Health Assembly: Follow-up of the report of the CEWG

20 May 2013

Distinguished Delegate,

We urge the World Health Organization (WHO) and its Member States to exercise leadership, ambition and innovative thinking in developing new paradigms to take forward the work of the Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination (CEWG) in reconciling the objectives of stimulating medical innovation and ensuring access for all.

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On Monday, 13 May 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously held that patent exhaustion does not apply to second, third or nth generations of seeds. In an opinion authored by Justice Kagan, the court found that patent exhaustion does not apply to seeds because later generations constitute new copies of the invention. Continue Reading →

On May 10, 2013, a very revealing freedom of information request was made available from the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO). The request had been filed on April 14, 2013 by the journalist Glyn Moody, for:

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A PDF version of our comments is available here.

People have until midnight May 10, 2013 to file comments, here:
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=USTR-2013-0019-0001

This is the table of contents.

Comments on the Administration’s Intention to Enter Into Negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) Agreement
Response to Docket No. USTR-2013-0019

Introduction
Transparency
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Note, we are adding some video clips from the meeting here:

On May 13, 2013, KEI will host a 12:30 to 2:30 brown bag lunch for a discussion of the WIPO Treaty for the Blind negotiations. It will be possible to attend in person, or follow the meeting on the telephone.

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On April 15, 2013, the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) sent a letter to Teresa Stanek Rea, the Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, setting out the IPO “concerns” about the proposed WIPO treaty for persons who are blind or visually impaired. (Copy here).

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On April 26, 2013 I attended a half day meeting on “A Human Rights Approach to Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines” organized by the Yale Law School and the Yale School of Public Health. These are notes from my interventions on behalf of KEI.

1. KEI does a lot of work on intellectual property rights that has impact on human rights. We do not always give prominence to human rights law or the language of human rights, although at times and in the right context, it can be important to do so.

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Below is the PhRMA press release on the Special 301 Report.

Key points in the PhRMA release:

* PhRMA “dismayed that USTR did not grant an out-of-cycle review for India.” PhRMA claims that India decisions involving German owned Bayer and Swiss owned Novartis “disproportionately impacted U.S. biopharmaceutical companies.” (Perhaps PhRMA could have said, companies that have ownership claims on the US government).

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Today USTR held a one hour “listening session” with several Washington, DC public interest groups. The topic was the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the European Union.

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On 1 May 2013, USTR released its 2013 Special 301 Report. Ukraine was put on the Priority Foreign Country list this year, a designation not used by USTR for several years. USTR’s 2013 report spends more than six pages discussing China and two full pages on India. Below are some comments regarding this year’s report.

Least Developed Countries
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