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Why would blind people get less than the Olympic Committee? Choosing between Convention, Recommendation and Declaration

When I first heard David Mann representing the World Blind Union at the information session of November 2003 SCCR, call for the “creation of international agreements which would allow the unhindered transfer of accessible material created in one country to blind and partially sighted people in another country”, I did not know that this issue had been the subject of a WIPO/UNESCO report in 1983, which had then proposed Model Provisions Concer Continue Reading

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ACTA to cover seven catagories of intellectual property

KEI has access to a recent draft of ACTA. Chapter One, Section B of the agreement provides for “General Definitions.” It is interesting that the term “counterfeits” does not have a general definition. The ten defined terms include:

  • days
  • intellectual property (See below)
  • Council (ACTA Oversight Council)
  • measure
  • person (natural or juridical)
  • right owner (includes federation or assicaitons that have legal standing or authoirty to assert rights)
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ACTA: the new institution

KEI has access to yet undisclosed sections of the negotiating ACTA text. The text is organized in 6 chapters. The longest is Chapter 2 on “legal framework for enforcement of intellectual property rights.” The second longest is Chapter 5, on “Institutional Arrangements.” In ten pages of text, the ACTA negotiators have set out a plan to create a new institution to administer, implement and modify ACTA. Continue Reading

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PhRMA’s asks regarding special 301, drug pricing and reimbursement

Below are asks from the 2010 PhRMA submission to the USTR Special 301 list on the topic of drug pricing and reimbursement decisions, and described as ‘Market Access Barriers.’ In its assertions, PhRMA attack countries for government price negotiations, making use of reference pricing, the insufficient involvement of pharmaceutical companies in setting government pricing policies and the composition of drug formularies, among other things.

CHINA

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Day after European Parliament votes against ACTA, Obama expresses support

  • March 10, 2010. In the Guardian: Ari Emanuel, the co-chief executive of William Morris Endeavor, the biggest Hollywood talent agency, was among several executives attending a meeting in Abu Dhabi, calling for governments to get tough on illegal downloading.

    Emanuel, the brother of US presidential adviser Rahm, said the industry was talking to the US government in a bid to introduce a “three strikes and you’re out” law to govern illegal downloading.
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FOIA document: In 2007, US Ambassador Ralph Boyce was pleased that Abbott withdrew life saving drugs from market in Thailand

In 2007, Thailand was involved in a dispute over the granting of compulsory licenses on medicines, including the patents used for Kaletra, an Abbott drug used in the treatment of AIDS. Kaletra is the brand name for a fixed dose combination of lopinavir and ritonavir (LPV/r) — two drugs invented at Abbott on an NIH grant. In 2007, LPV/r was the preferred combination for protease inhibitor regimes used to treat AIDS. Continue Reading

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The USPTO-Pfizer collaboration to change India’s laws on patents and test data

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has a joint program with Pfizer to fund and manage seminars in India on “misconceptions of evergreening” and “the importance of regulatory data protection and patent linkage.” KEI has submitted a FOIA request to USPTO on this topic, and received a small installment of documents on Friday. Attached to this blog are 4 pages of documents that we received from two meetings held in Mumbai, India on September 9, 2009. Ten journalists and 15 NGOs attended the meetings. Continue Reading

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