Mike Palmedo

Mike Palmedo is the admin for infojustice.org, and he manages interdisciplinary research on copyright exceptions at American University College of Law's Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property. He has Masters degrees Economics and in International Affairs, and is an economics PhD candidate.
  • Joined: January 13, 2011
  • Articles: 783

An Overview of Copyright Restrictions to Legal TDM Research

[Mike Palmedo] PIJIP has been reviewing copyright laws around the world. Our detailed review is available as a PIJIP working paper in which we classify countries "based on the degree to which they have a research exception in their law that is sufficiently open to be able to permit reproduction and communications of copyrighted work needed for academic (i.e. non-commercial) text and data mining (TDM) research.” This post presents the data on copyright exceptions by restriction rather than by country. It demonstrates that wealthier countries tend to have less restrictive copyright exceptions for TDM research, relative to other countries.

100 Members of Congress Write Biden Administration Urging Compulsory Licenses for Drugs Produced with Taxpayer Funding

[Mike Palmedo] A group of 100 Members of Congress led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Lloyd Doggett has sent a letter to DHHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, asking him to take actions to lower U.S. drug prices. The letter specifically asks him to "utilize administrative authorities, including government patent use compulsory licensing under 28 U.S.C. 1498 and march-in and royalty-free rights under the Bayh-Dole Act." These actions would introduce generic and biosimilar competition for drugs developed with U.S.-taxpayer funding.

African Group Proposal to WIPO on Copyright Exceptions and Limitations

Last week, the Africa Group has submitted a proposal for a Draft Work Program on Exceptions and Limitations to WIPO's Standing Committee on Copyright and RElated Rights (SCCR). It was submitted in for discussion at the upcoming SCCR meeting in May. The proposal asks SCCR to "continue to work towards an appropriate international legal instrument or instruments (whether model law, joint recommendation, treaty and/or other forms) on limitations and exceptions for libraries, archives, museums, education, research, and uses for persons with other disabilities."

Singapore’s Copyright Act 2021: New Exception for Computational Uses and Updates to Fair Use and Educational Exceptions

[Mike Palmedo] Singapore's new Copyright Act came into force on November 21. The law was amended to keep up with changes in ICT technology that affect the creation and consumption of copyrighted works. The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore has posted a good overview, and three more detailed descriptions... This post highlights three changes to the limitations and exceptions that may be of interest to InfoJustice's readers.

Research Exceptions in Comparative Copyright Law

[Sean Flynn, Michael Palmedo, and Andrés Izquierdo] Abstract: Recent scholarship has highlighted the positive impact on scholarship of copyright exceptions for text and data mining and of more “open” exceptions for research uses. Until now, however, there has not been a collection and categorization of the world’s copyright laws according to the degree to which they provide exceptions for research. In this report, we release the results of the first such study. We show that every copyright law in the world has at least one exception to promote research uses of copyrighted works, but that such exceptions vary widely between countries.

Promotion of TRIPS-Plus Intellectual Property Provisions Through the Special 301 Review: How Did It Change During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

[Mike Palmedo] This post introduces my chapter the Special 301 Report in the newly-published book Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines.  The chapter, titled “Unilateral Norm Setting Using Special 301” focuses on Special 301 listings from 2009 to 2020 related to intellectual property policies that can be used to access generic medicines. This post will also describe the Special 301 listings in the 2021 Special 301 Report, which was released after the Covid-19 pandemic had taken hold. There were some differences in the 2021 Report pertaining to specific TRIPS flexibilities useful in the fight against Covid-19. However, much of the 2021 Report was similar to the reports released before the pandemic – the Report still criticized countries for policies that could help the fight against Covid-19.

End-User Flexibilities in Digital Copyright Law – An Empirical Analysis of End-user License Agreements

[Péter Mezei and István Harkai] Abstract: In the platform age, copyright protected contents are primarily disseminated over the internet. This model poses various challenges to the copyright regime that was mainly designed in and for the analogue age. One of these challenges is related to the fair balance between the interests of rightholders and other members of the society. Copyright norms try to guarantee this balance by granting a high level of protection for rightholders and preserving some flexibility for end-users. Regulation by platforms’ end-user license agreements might also be relevant to preserve that balance. The present paper focused on how these private norms allow for or diminish the exercise of user flexibilities. We collected, analysed and compared seventeen private ordering practices of service providers grouped in four main categories.

New Paper Shows Data Exclusivity Linked to Higher Prices of Pharmaceutical Imports

[Mike Palmedo] Some studies that estimating the impact that trade agreements have had on medicine prices have found it to be small, as the effects take a long time to become fully apparent. Studies that have instead studied the effect of TRIPS-Plus rules required by trade agreements – such as patent term extensions, rules on the protection of test data – have often found significant impacts on prices or availability of medicines. Many of the existing studies have focused on one country, and/or on a few drugs. In a new working paper, I take another approach by focusing on one TRIPS-plus provision required by all US trade agreements and demonstrating that the provision has been associated with faster inflation of imported pharmaceutical import prices in a set of 42 countries. Specifically, the price of drug imports rose on average between 2.4 and 4.5 percentage points faster in the countries that had implemented data exclusivity than in those without it.

Sign-On STATEMENT TO WTO In Support of TRIPS WAIVER: Copyright Barriers Prevent an Equitable Response to COVID-19

A group of 27 civil society organizations has drafted a statement to the World Trade Organization (WTO) highlighting the need to overcome copyright barriers to ensure an equitable response to COVID-19. The statement is open for endorsements from both organizations and from individuals until March 18. It will be formally submitted to the WTO on March 22.

Publishers Sue Sci-Hub and LibGen in India for Copyright Infringement, Seek to Have Websites Blocked

Three major academic publishers sued Sci-Hub and Libgen for copyright infringement in the Delhi High Court on December 21. Both sites provide unauthorized downloads of academic works to students and researchers. The publishers - Elsevier, Wiley and the American Chemical Society - are asking the judge to require dynamic blocking of the websites.

12 South African Civil Society Groups Demonstrate for COPyright Reform on UN International Human Rights Day

On December 10, International Human Rights Day, twelve South African civil society groups called on the government to modernize its copyright law. The groups led a march from the Department of Trade and Industry to the Union Buildings and delivered a memorandum demanding the passage of copyright reform to protect vital rights.

USTR to Announce 2021 Special 301 Review

The U.S Trade Representative will announce the 2021 Special 301 Review tomorrow. This is the annual review required by the Trade Act which identifies countries that “deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property (IP) rights or deny fair and equitable market access to U.S. persons who rely on IP protection.” The review is based partially on comments received from "interested parties" to the interagency Special 301 Subcommittee of the Trade Policy Staff Committee.