April 2011: WHO to tackle pandemic influenza, de-linkage, prizes, R&D financing and non-communicable diseases
April 2011 ushers in a busy period for the World Health Organization. Continue Reading
MEP Franciso Sosa Wagner poses question about support for WIPO treaty for persons who are blind or have other disabilities
Francisco SOSA WAGNER, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Spain, has submitted a question to the European Commission on the WIPO negotiations for a treaty for persons who are blind or have other disabilities.
David Hammerstein has provided the following translation into English:
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Patents and Doctors, and the USTR TPP text
The recently obtained US draft text for the intellectual property rights chapter for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) contains provisions that go far beyond the requirements of international agreements as well as the standards of US law itself. One particular area of concern involves the broad definition of patent eligible subject matter that fails to provide for any exception from patentability for surgical methods or procedures. Nor does the draft language contain any exception for the enforcement of surgical method patents. Continue Reading
The complete Feb 10, 2011 text of the US proposal for the TPP IPR chapter
KEI has obtained the February 10, 2011 US government draft of the intellectual property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).
United States Patent and Trademark Office’s “Humanitarian Pilot Proposal.” Comments by KEI, MSF, Oxfam, PC and UAEM
The USPTO is considering a pilot program to consider the benefits of providing a voucher for certain accelerated reviews of patent applications, as a reward for licensing patents for humanitarian uses. On March 2, 2011, Anne Guha provided a very useful summary of public comments on the proposal, which is available here: https://www.keionline.org/node/1074
Interview with David Hammerstein regarding negotiations on WIPO treaty for persons who are blind or have other disabilities
David Hammerstein is a former Member of the European Parliament from Spain. He now works for the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD). Among other things, he is an advocate for a new WIPO copyright treaty for persons who are blind or have other disabilities. The following is an interview with David, carried out from March 3 to March 6 by email.
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On March 2, 2011, Michel Barnier, the EC Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, wrote to Dan Pescod of the European Blind Union, to defend the European Commission decision to back a soft alternative to a treaty at WIPO. (More context, including the text of all of the proposals at WIPO, 