Over the weekend, I looked at a small section of one of my bookshelf at home.
As in my previous blog, I wrote down the titles and author names for all of the books, and then checked on Bookshare.org to find out what is actually available for reading disabled persons. For purposes of this survey, I considered all books on Bookshare of “fair or above quality” (the lowest of 4 categories that include publisher’s quality, excellent and good), as “being available.”
Today, I checked the books on my bookshelves at work. I found 69 books. 9 of them are available in formats accessible to the reading disabled in the US and 1 is available to the print disabled worldwide.
February 19, 2009
Press Advisory on NGO letters to WHO and WTO on topic of Dutch seizures of generic medicines in-transit from India to Brazil, Colombia and Peru.
In response to news about four seizures of generic medicines manufactured in India and shipped through the Netherlands in route to Brazil, Colombia and Peru, sixteen public health, consumer and development NGOs have sent separate letters to the heads of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
For more information, KEI general page on the Bayh Dole Act, or one of the mini Bayh-Dole timelines, such as the ones on transparency, march-in rights or royalty free uses. TIMELINE 1980 1980. October 21. Public Law 96-480. Stevenson-Wydler Technology… Continue Reading
There are plans for the next ACTA negotiation to take place in Rabat, Morocco. However, since none of the Obama trade people have been placed at USTR, this might be delayed.
The USTR is still maintaining secrecy over details of the negotiation, including the names of participants and all of the proposed texts for negotiations. Despite this, KEI has obtained some documents related to the negotiations. We can report the following:
On this day, 3 February 2009, H.E. Ambassador Roberto AZEVÊDO, Permanent Representative of Brazil to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other economic organizations in Geneva made the following intervention at the WTO General Council meeting on the seizure by Dutch authorities of a cargo of 500 kilos of losartan potassium en route from India to Brazil.
Judd Gregg will reportedly be appointed as Sec. of Commerce today.
Here a few data points on pharmaceutical issues.
Romulus
Although the founding of Rome is a mystery, the myths of its origin hold that Romulus and Remus, the sons of Mars and Rhea Silvia, abandoned by their parents on the banks of the river Tiber, were suckled by a she-wolf, Lupa. Upon reaching adulthood, Romulus and Remus vied for control of Rome. According to Wikipedia,
Over the past several weeks there have been a several cases where some well motivated and knowledgeable persons about copyright policy have expressed criticism of an effort by WIPO to negotiate a treaty for persons who are blind or have other reading disabilities, on the grounds that this is not ambitious enough, and a larger all inclusive treaty on limitations and exceptions should be the target.
On 21 January 2009, WHO released a document (EB124/16 Add.2) relating to the global strategy and plan of action of the public health, innovation and intellectual strand of its work entitled “Proposed time frames and estimated funding needs“. This document is a costing exercise to “estimate funding needs for the implementation of the plan”. Continue Reading