Knowledge Ecology International

On Tuesday, 1 March 2011, Brazil made the following intervention at the WTO Council for TRIPS during discussions of the paragraph 6 system.

Mr. Chairman,
 
Brazil welcomes the opportunity for this follow-up to the review on the implementation of the paragraph 6 system. Our aim here is to assess whether this system is indeed an expeditious solution for countries lacking manufacturing capacity and to address any shortcomings for the system’s effective operation.
 
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On September 20, 2010, the PTO published “Request for Comments on Incentivizing Humanitarian Technologies and Licensing Through the Intellectual Property System” in the Federal Register (75 Fed. Reg. 57261, available here):

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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, here. Continue Reading →

Apparently it is now down to seven final candidates to be the new US Register of Copyrights. These include two employees of the Copyright Office (Carson and Kasunic), a lawyer in private practice (Fries), a full time professor (Brauneis), a professor/USPTO negotiator (Hughes), a trade negotiator (McCoy), and a representative of a trade association (Perlmutter). By gender, the finalists are two women, and five men.

They are, in alphabetical order:

Robert Brauneis
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On February 26, 2011, the World Blind Union issued a statement announcing it would “suspend participation in the WIPO Stakeholder Platform and EU Stakeholder Dialogue projects, pending agreement at WIPO on a proper binding legal framework.” [See full statement below]. The WBU statement is expected to dramatically change the environment for considering a new WIPO treaty for persons who are blind or have other disabilities.

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Congressional Research Service reports are prepared in response to requests from members of congress. For decades, right to know groups have been asking that they be available online. The CRS describes itself as follows:

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KEI’s comments on the USTR 2011 Special 301 Review are available here.

For further background on the 301 process, see: /ustr/special301 Continue Reading →