As misleading as it is when drug companies say they use R&D costs, therapeutic value, or "market forces" when they set the initial price of new medicines, Big Pharma is equally duplicitous when talking about their repetitive price increases on existing medicines via their direct and indirect references to ordinary inflation rates and the consumer price index.
[Prathima Appaji, Creative Commons USA] In the field of academic publishing, there are a variety of models. Many journals use ‘reader-pay’ model wherein readers pay a fixed price to access to read. Increasingly, open access journals and hybrid journals are using an ‘author-pay’ model where the author pays a fixed Article Publishing Charge (APC) and the article is made accessible to all readers for free... in many cases, APCs have grown from a small fee to a major one. Click here for more.
Law-makers in South East Asia should follow Australia’s lead and stomp out ‘glamourous’ cigarette packaging, says a QUT law academic in the lead-up to World No Tobacco Day (May 31). In 2012 Australia became the first country in the world to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes – a move that aimed to “kill the glamour”, make smoking less appealing to all ages, limit misleading packaging, and provide more obvious health warnings. QUT Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Innovation Law Matthew Rimmer said Australia’s plain packaging law was a hard-fought win.
[Teresa Nobre] We recently released our new report “Educational Licences in Europe”, where we analyzed 10 collective agreements in Finland, France, and the United Kingdom. This study shows that educational licences for using copyrighted content in schools include many terms and conditions that restrict users’ rights and that are unfair or unreasonable... here are the 5 most questionable terms and conditions identified in the agreements analyzed in our study.
The Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law and Professor Daniel Gervais hosted the 2018 Symposium titled JETLaw Symposium, Dramatic Changes: The Effect of International Trade on Intellectual Property and Human Rights on Thursday, January 25, 2018 at Vanderbilt Law School. The Symposium featured three panels of scholars discussing issues related to the intersection of these three topics.
The South Asian region, home to 24% of the world’s population faces major challenges such as hunger, poverty and inequality. These challenges become the collective responsibility of scholars and experts in research universities across the country. Consequently, it becomes imperative that research institutes share scientific research outputs and accelerate scientific research. The Open Access movement which aims for making all ‘publicly funded research outcomes publicly available for the public good’ is gaining momentum.
The Cisco Systems v. Arista case has gotten very little attention among the information justice community who generally care about freedom to reuse unprotectable elements in copyrighted works. The case and the issues it raises deserve more visibility, as I expressed in a brief I wrote in support of Arista. Cisco charged Arista with infringement for its reuse of 509 command-line interface (CLI) terms, along with some additional elements of the Cisco user interface, which engineers use to configure their ethernet switching technologies.
[Manon Ress, Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment, Link] UACT applauds the Chilean Congress resolution calling on the President to advance the compulsory licensing request on HCV drugs made in March 2017 by patients, advocates including Innovarte NGO, and elected officials.…
[Paper by Paul Heald] This study compares the availability of books whose copyrights are eligible for statutory reversion under US law with books whose copyrights are still exercised by the original publisher. It finds that 17 USC § 203, which permits reversion to authors in year 35 after publication, and 17 USC § 304, which permits reversion 56 years after publication, significantly increase in-print status for important classes of books.
Hi all. We are currently in the process of updating our website. Posts and content may appear a bit unusual over the weekend.
[Andrew Rens] The parliamentary portfolio committee on trade and industry is debating a bill to amend the 1978 Copyright Act. The bill, which originated with the Department of Trade and Industry, is intended to give legacy industries such as publishing…
[Originally posted on twn.my, Link] There is little evidence to support WIPO’s approach of asserting intellectual property as a central piece of innovation, says Professor Carlos Correa, Senior Advisor at South Centre. Prof. Correa, a renowned IP expert, was speaking…