This is the statement that the government of Bolivia delivered today to the 62nd World Health Assembly at the conclusion of the discussions on the Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (WHA 61.21).
Statement of Bolivia on resolving outstanding elements of agenda item 12.8
Joint Statement on behalf of
Bangladesh, Barbados, Bolivia and Suriname, and
Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela
The WHA will take up the WHA IGWG resolution at 9AM on Friday.
When discussing the issue of excluding the WHO from discussions about a medical R&D treaty, one PhRMA lobbyist told me “this was put to bed long ago.” He was in part referring to a WHO “green room” meeting that was organized before the Obama inauguration. One negotiator said the pharmaceutical companies are pressing hard to kill the medical R&D treaty here “before the new people take over.”
21 May 2009
Today at the World Health Assembly (WHA) the US and EU are opposing that the WHO have a mandate on global research and development norms, including the possibility for Member States to negotiate at WHO a global biomedical R&D treaty.
Developing countries governments made very strong interventions this morning on this issue (among them India, Bolivia, Barbados, Suriname, Bangladesh, Ghana, Argentina, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Cuba and Jamaica) and are wondering where are the promises of multilateralism made by the new Obama administration.
I spent a few minutes today on Amazon, to check on reports that some Kindle titles now have text to speech disabled. Among the authors who are “turning off” text to speech in Kindle editions of books are President Obama, Vice President Biden, Toni Morrison, the Pope, Stephen King, Maya Angelou, Mother Teresa, Isaac Asimov, Tom Brokaw, P.D. James, Robert B. Reich, George Will and Ann Coulter, to mention a few.
The contributions from WHO Member States and other Stakeholders to the Expert Working Group on R&D financing are now available on the WHO website.
The following extract is taken from the WHO public hearing website:
Today is day four of the second session of the International Patent Cooperation Union (PCT) Working Group of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) taking place at WIPO. Here below are the suggestions of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Member States (GRULAC) would like to be incorporated into the recommendation of the Working Group to the PCT Assembly.The Members of GRULAC that are contracting-parties to the PCT Treaty suggest the addition of the following elements into the recommendation of the Working Group to the PCT Assembly.
MICROSOFT CORPORATION, FORM 10-Q For the Quarter Ended March 31, 2009
Item 1A. Risk Factors
Our operations and financial results are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those described below, that could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, and the trading price of our common stock.
Find below a copy of the KEI submission to the U.S. Copyright Office and the USPTO on a survey on accessible books in Spanish-Speaking Countries.
Survey on Accessible Books in Spanish-Speaking Countries
By Judit Rius Sanjuan, Knowledge Ecology International
April 28, 2009
Every three years, the Library of Congress solicits public proposals for new (and renewable existing) exemptions from the anti-circumvention provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. On May 1, and May 6-8, the Library of Congress’s Copyright Office will hold its triennial rulemaking session on the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA, where they will host panel discussions on the 2009 proposed exemptions.
KEI recently submitted comments to the US Copyright Office regarding the upcoming Treaty for the Blind. One element of those comments was a test of the availability of books in reading-accessible format.