Knowledge Ecology International

President Obama claims to have kept “lobbyists” off the advisory boards for USTR. The Obama Administration relies upon the narrow legal definition of those persons who register to lobby the US Congress, which excludes expenditures to direct, supervise or support the lobbyists, and expenditures of many staff and consultants who are not fully engaged in lobbying the Congress. Expenditures to influence the executive branch (including USTR) has very little if any regulation, and are not counted as lobbying. Continue Reading →

Statement by the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)- Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC)

Geneva, 17 February 2012

Mr. President,

I join previous speakers and congratulate you on your election.

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18 January 2012

Chair of IGC 20, Ambassador Wayne McCook, Jamaica, and Wend Wendland, WIPO Courtesy of Marc Perlman

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On February 16, 2012, the USPTO held a public hearing on genetic diagnostic testing, permitting stakeholders to present their views relating to DNA patents, exclusive licensing, patient health and genetic testing, particularly as they relate to secondary or confirmatory genetic diagnostic testing. Notes from the hearing and speaker statements are included below. KEI’s oral statement can be found here.

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On February 16, 2012, the USPTO held a public hearing on genetic diagnostic testing, pursuant to a Congressional mandate that was part of the America Invents Act. This mandate directed the USPTO to evaluate several questions related to genetic diagnostic testing, particularly with regard to second opinion or confirmatory genetic testing. USPTO will deliver its final report to Congress in June. Notes from the public hearing are available in a separate blog post.

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In a meeting with USTR on February 15, 2012, KEI, MSF, Oxfam and Public Citizen pressed USTR to release the negotiating text for the intellectual property rights chapter in the TPPA trade agreement negotiation. USTR said the negotiation had “unprecedented” transparency, but maintained the text needed to be secret from the general public. USTR also claimed than no one on its many advisory boards, who are cleared to see the negotiating text, were lobbyists.

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This is an essay about strategic ignorance, as regards evidence relevant to policies that cost consumers and taxpayers billions of dollars.

The United States government grants 20 year patents on pharmaceutical drugs, and it also provides a growing number of other non-patent incentives and subsidies to stimulate R&D investments in new medicines. Are these incentives and subsidies necessary or cost effective? How would anyone know?

Here are some of the incentives we offer:

• Up to five year extensions of patents on pharmaceutical drugs.

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On Wednesday February 22, 2012, from 12:30pm to 2:30pm, KEI will host a roundtable discussion on international copyright negotiations. The location of the meeting will be 1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20009. There will be an opportunity to participate by telephone, via toll free calls in many countries. (To register or for details on call-in, email manon.ress@keionline.org. If you want to try to join by skype, we will do our best.)

The topics to be discussed are the following International copyright negotiations:

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Sangeeta Shashikant from TWN recently collected and published several NGO statements on the Africa IP Summit, in the TWO Info Service on Intellectual Property Issues (Feb12/03), which included a link also to a letter to WIPO signed by more than 100 NGOs. Continue Reading →