[Sean Flynn and Peter Jaszi] We write in reference to the August 1, 2018, filing of the IIPA, in respect of South Africa’s proposed copyright amendments. IIPA claims that adoption of the South Africa copyright amendment bill “would place South Africa out of compliance with the AGOA eligibility criteria regarding intellectual property.” We find this claim wholly unsupported.
The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is conducting its annual review of country eligibility for trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). This law allows beneficiary countries to export certain goods into the U.S. duty-free. The benefits are conditional upon a set of criteria, which includes the protection of intellectual property. The International Intellectual Property Association (IIPA) has filed comments to USTR arguing that South Africa’s copyright reform legislation, if it becomes law, “would place South Africa out of compliance with the AGOA eligibility criteria regarding intellectual property.”
[Lisette Kalshoven] The next major step in the EU copyright reform process is the vote scheduled for 12 September, when the entire European Parliament (about 750 people) will vote on amendments that are being put forward until 5 September. They will vote on amendments to the text put forward by the European Commission, which was shared back in 2016. The JURI report, which was rejected on 5 July by the parliament had several improvements for the education exception on article 4. It was, however, not nearly enough to truly make copyright work for education in Europe. For the purpose of the vote on 12 September, we need to work with the Commission text. Below we will share the three most important things to fix.
[International Federation of Library Associations (CC-BY)] After our blog post Copyright for Libraries in 2018, we have engaged with the CLM network to keep up the effort of spotting copyright changes around the world. Here’s an update at the start of the second half of the year...
[Sharon Bar-Ziv and Niva Elkin-Koren] Abstract: Copyright enforcement was one of the early challenges to the rule of law on the internet and has shaped its development since the early 1990s. The Notice and Takedown (N&TD) regime, enacted in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, offered online intermediaries immunity from liability in exchange for removing allegedly infringing materials upon receiving notice from rights holders. The unequivocal power of rights holders to request removal and the strong incentives for online intermediaries to remove content upon receiving a removal request have turned the N&TD regime into a robust clean-up mechanism for removing any unwarranted content. The N&TD procedure applies to private facilities, makes use of proprietary software, and is administered by private companies. This enforcement procedure is nontransparent and lacks sufficient legal or public oversight. Unlike copyright enforcement in court, where decisions are made public, we know very little about the actual implementation of the N&TD regime: Which players make use of the system? Who is targeted? What materials get removed and why? How effective is the removal of infringing materials, and does it comply with copyright law?
“The prosecco issue is one of the many skirmishes we could see if the European community seeks to expand the protection of GI to include a wider range of wine regions, as well as food and foodstuffs under the proposed new trade agreement,” Professor Matthew Rimmer said.
[Sean Flynn, Michael W. Carroll, Peter Jaszi, Ariel Katz, Leandro Mendonça, Diane Peters, and Allan Rocha de Souza] Copyright laws the world over are under massive pressure to reform to fit the digital environment. One key area often in need of reform is in the exceptions to copyright that enable the digital practices. Without exceptions, common practices may be illegal, such as sharing photos on social media, making technical copies to send and stream, and uploading excerpts to closed networks for student access. None of these and dozens of other digital issues were considered when most of our laws were drafted in the 1970s. South Africa is on the cusp of reforming its law with a new hybrid exception that contains both a set of modern specific exceptions for various purposes and an open general exception that can be used to assess any use not specifically authorized.
[Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge]… I-MAK’s years of research and successful legal challenges show that all too often, drug manufacturers hold unmerited patents on old science. This enables a few manufacturers to corner the market on entire diseases, artificially inflating the price of treatment, and blocking access to affordable generic drugs for decades. We believe America is facing two inter-related challenges: a drug pricing crisis and a patent system that is excessively tilted in favor of pharmaceutical manufacturers over patients.
... What distinguishes the European copyright reform experience from others and what lessons might be learned for future efforts around the world? One takeaway is that there are presently two kinds of copyright reforms. The first involves a conventional balancing of copyright interests, typically framed as creator rights on the one hand and users’ rights on the other. Ensuring both appropriate compensation and reasonable rights of access and reuse are invariably contentious, but they are largely limited to copyright-related considerations... This stands in marked contrast to the second kind of copyright reform, which uses law to mandate copyright enforcement through regulating technology and digital networks. Those proposals have implications that extend far beyond the copyright balance, sparking concerns related to freedom of expression, privacy, and net neutrality.
We commend Parliament for its forward-looking copyright amendments that will assist South African creators and users of copyrighted works benefit from the digital age. We commend you as well for the open public process through which you have drafted the bill. We support the specific textual suggestions included in the ReCreateSA submission. We provide the following comments focusing on Section 12 of the draft Copyright Amendment Bill, and in particular the “fair use” provision in 12B.
[David Branigan, IP-Watch] The 11th edition of the Global Innovation Index 2018 (GII), co-published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization, was released yesterday at a launch event in New York. This year’s report showed Switzerland still at the top overall, China continuing to rise, the United States slipping, and explored how countries can vary on inputs and outputs of innovation. “The GII ranks 126 economies based on 80 indicators, ranging from intellectual property filing rates to mobile-application creation, education spending and scientific and technical publications,” according to a WIPO press release.
[Delhi Network of Positive People] 10 July 2018: Delhi Network of Positive People (DNP+) has filed today two patent oppositions before the Indian patent office, challenging additional patent claims by US pharmaceutical corporation-Gilead Sciences for the hepatitis C medicines sofosbuvir and velpatasvir. These oppositions challenge Gilead’s patent applications for the tablet formulation of the fixed-dose combination of sofosbuvir/velpatasvir and the polymorph form of velpatasvir.