Knowledge Ecology International

In briefings about the WIPO proposal for a treaty for persons who are blind or have other disabilities, the U.S. government has sent mixed signals regarding the legality of exporting of accessible works created under exceptions in U.S. law. In some informal briefings and conversations, the U.S. government has said such exports are allowed under U.S. law. At other times, they say they are not.

KEI has obtained a June 12, 2008 memo from the U.S. Copyright Office, written by Neil Conley to David Carson, that analyzes the possible extraterritorial effects of the Chafee Amendment.

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A new copyright bill in Canada includes extensive provisions about the export of accessible works for persons with a “print disability.” The good news is that they embrace a reasonably good definition of disabilities covered. It goes down hill from there.

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Here below is India’s intervention on ‘TRIPS plus IPR Enforcement’ as delivered at the WTO TRIPS Council on 9 June 2010.

On June 7, 2010 medicine access advocacy groups joined together in asking that George Washington University (GWU) put a stop to its industry-sponsored intellectual property (IP) summits and to take an academic, evidenced-based approach to conferences it conducts in India. Continue Reading →

In 2006 the Supreme Court paved the way for, in effect, judicial compulsory licensing by holding in eBay v. MercExchange that, contrary to wide-scale practice at the time, permanent injunctions should not automatically issue upon a finding of patent infringement. Continue Reading →

There is a negotiation in the WIPO SCCR over the work program on copyright limitations and exceptions for persons with disabilities. Some countries favor a negotiation on a binding treaty. The US government is asking that the SCCR set aside work on the treaty, and focus instead on a non-binding recommendation to address a limited set of issues relating to the import and export of works created under an exception. The US government asserts that treaties would take a very long time to negotiate, ratify and implement. Continue Reading →

On 4 June 2010, Dr. Margaret Chan (Director General, World Health Organization) announced Dr. Anne Marie Worning as ‘acting Director, Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (PHI)’. According to the WHO website,

Dr Anne Marie Worning, a Danish national, is the Executive Director of the Director-General’s Office since April 2009.

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The following WTO aerogram contains the agenda for the upcoming WTO Council for TRIPS meeting to be held in Geneva from 8 June 2010 to 9 June 2010. Paragraph 2 and agenda items l and m will be of interest to readers of this blog. It should be noted that in the original document, the text is capitalized.

WTO/AIR/3562/Rev. 1

1. The next meeting of the Council for TRIPS will be held in the Center William Rappard on 8-9 June 2010. The meeting will start at 11 A.M. Tuesday, 8 June.

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The announcement this week that Al and Tipper Gore have separated brought back a number of memories. I first worked with Al Gore’s office in 1990, when I was an employee of the Center for the Study of Responsive Law, working with the American Library Association (ALA) and other library groups to overturn a Reagan era policy to privatize the distribution of government databases. Among other things, I had worked with Representative Charlie Rose to introduce a bill in the House of Representatives to create an online distribution system at the Government Printing Office (GPO). Continue Reading →

On May 27, 2010, the US government presented to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), a proposal for a “Consensus Instrument” for persons with disabilities related to reading printed publications.

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