Papers

Papers

  • Joined: March 4, 2014
  • Articles: 339

An Empirical Review of the Copyright Limitations and Exceptions for Educational Activities

[Daniel Kiat Boon Seng] Abstract: International copyright instruments allow member states of WIPO to make various education-related limitations and exceptions to copyright. To better inform international policy-making in this area, it is instructive to examine how various member states have, in their national copyright legislation, enabled the use of works for education, given the nature and breadth of modern-day education. This paper categorises education-related limitations and exceptions in the legislation of member states into eight categories

Copyright as a Barrier to Music Therapy Telehealth Interventions: Qualitative Interview Study

populations. A therapist who plays music in a private room for a patient is not subject to copyright restrictions. However, in the wake up of the COVID-19 pandemic, music therapy is no longer strictly confined to the face-to-face setting. The present study explores music therapists’ perceptions of copyright law with respect to their ability to provide mediated services to their clients.

The People’s Vaccine: Intellectual Property, Access to Essential Medicines, and the Coronavirus COVID-19

[Mattthew Rimmer] Abstract: This paper explores intellectual property and access to essential medicines in the context of the coronavirus COVID-19 public health crisis. It considers policy solutions to counteract vaccine nationalism and profiteering by pharmaceutical companies and vaccine developers. This paper considers the campaign for the development of a People's Vaccine led by the People’s Vaccine Alliance, UNAIDS, Oxfam and Public Citizen.

Repairing Medical Equipment in Times of Pandemic

[Ofer Tur-Sinai and Leah Chan Grinvald] Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic that has gripped the world since early 2020 has underscored the need for an effective right to repair medical equipment. As healthcare systems have been pushed to the limit, keeping critical medical equipment (such as ventilators) in working order has become a matter of life and death. Unfortunately, the ability of hospitals and other health care providers to service and fix their medical equipment is often hindered by the tight control that original equipment manufacturers keep over repair of their products. On top of direct contractual restrictions on repair, one of the major difficulties encountered by hospital-based and third-party service providers is the lack of access to service manuals, service keys, schematics, replacement parts, and repair tools. The ability to block access to these critical items is abetted, in large part, by intellectual property laws.

A deeper look into the EU Text and Data Mining exceptions: Harmonisation, data ownership, and the future of technology

[Thomas Margoni and Martin Kretschmer, Martin] Abstract: There is global attention on new data analytic methods. Data scraping (a typical first step for advanced data analytics), text and data mining (TDM, the extraction of knowledge from data) and machine learning (ML, often also simply referred to as Artificial Intelligence or AI) are seen as critical technologies. The legal issues involved in the regulation of data range from privacy and data protection (such as the GDPR) to proprietary approaches (such as copyright, database rights, or proposed new rights in data themselves). This paper focusses on one specific intervention, the introduction of two exceptions for text and data mining in the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM). Art. 3 is a mandatory exception for text and data mining (TDM) for the purposes of scientific research; Art. 4 permits text and data mining by anyone but with rightsholders able to “contract-out” (Art. 4), for example preventing TDM use of publicly available online content by “machine-readable means”. Click here for more.

Addressing Exclusivity Issues During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond

[Michael S. Sinha, Sven Bostyn, and Timo Minssen] Abstract: ... This chapter addresses exclusivity issues, with a particular emphasis on regulatory exclusivities for vaccines and therapeutics. We begin with a basic overview of the current regulatory exclusivity landscape in Europe and the US, followed by a discussion of current developments in COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. Next, we describe the influence of these technological developments on debates surrounding regulatory exclusivities while describing their relationship to other forms of exclusivities. From these assessments, we draw some lessons for market exclusivity, innovation, and access during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Interfaces and Interoperability After Google v. Oracle

[Mark A. Lemley and Pamela Samuelson] Abstract: We address an important issue the Supreme Court left unaddressed this spring in its blockbuster Google v. Oracle decision: are computer interfaces copyrightable at all? We argue that they aren’t, and that the Federal Circuit's decision to the contrary is an aberration that should not undermine a quarter century of consensus on the importance of interoperability and open APIs. In our view, denying copyright protection for APIs and encouraging interoperability is important not only for innovation in the software world but for restoring competition to a technology industry dominated by a few incumbent firms.

The Corruption of Copyright and Returning It to Its Original Purposes

[Michelle M. Wu] undermined both of those interests, redirecting the benefits of copyright towards themselves instead of the intended beneficiaries. This paper looks at the book, music, and entertainment industries, examines how copyright has been used to suppress the uses it was intended to foster, and explores ongoing and proposed avenues for course correction.

Text and Data Mining Exception in South America: A Way to Foster AI Development in the Region

[Matías Jackson Bertón] Abstract: In 2015, authors wondered if Europe was falling behind in the artificial intelligence (AI) race because of the lack of a text and data mining (TDM) exception. What can then be said for South America? Copyright regimes and their interaction with the development of digital technologies in this continent have been overlooked by authors. This paper intends to start filling this gap by mapping the current state of copyright exceptions that serve computational analysis in South America. After reviewing the copyright regimes of the five largest economies of the region (i.e. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru), I concluded that they are not prepared for digital research techniques such as text and data mining.

The Effect of Patent Disclosure Quality on Innovation

[Travis Dyer, Stephen Glaeser, Mark H. Lang and Caroline Sprecher] Abstract: The patent system grants inventors temporary monopoly rights in exchange for a public disclosure detailing their innovation. These disclosures are meant to allow others to recreate and build on the patented innovation. We examine how the quality of these disclosures affects follow-on innovation. We use the plausibly exogenous assignment to patent applications of patent examiners who differ in their enforcement of disclosure requirements as a source of variation in disclosure quality. We find that some examiners are significantly more lenient with respect to patent disclosure quality requirements, and that patents granted by these examiners include significantly lower-quality disclosures. These patents generate significantly less follow-on innovation.

Defending Access to Medicines in Regional Trade Agreements: Lessons From the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership – A Qualitative Study of Policy Actors’ Views

[Belinda Townsend] ...The RCEP negotiations were initially framed as focused on the needs of low income countries. Public health concerns emerged however when draft negotiating chapters were leaked online, revealing pressures on countries to agree to intellectual property and investment measures that could exacerbate issues of access to medicines and seeds, and protecting regulatory space for public health. A concerted Asia Pacific civil society campaign emerged in response to these concerns, and in 2019, media and government reporting suggested that several of these measures had been taken off the table, which was subsequently confirmed in the release of the signed text in November 2020.

An Endless Odyssey? Content Moderation Without General Content Monitoring Obligations

[Christina Angelopoulos and Martin Senftleben] Abstract: In line with the E-Commerce Directive and the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, the proposed Digital Services Act provides explicitly that intermediaries may not be obliged to monitor their service in a general manner in order to detect and prevent the illegal activity of their users. However, a misunderstanding of the difference between monitoring specific content and monitoring FOR specific content is a recurrent theme in the debate on intermediary liability and a central driver of the controversy surrounding it. Rightly understood, a prohibited general monitoring obligation arises whenever content – no matter how specifically it is defined – must be identified among the totality of the content on a platform. The moment platform content must be screened in its entirety, the monitoring obligation acquires an excessive, general nature.