Category News

Creative Commons Is Now Leading the Open COVID Pledge—Here’s What That Means

[Diane Peters and Eric Steuer] We’re pleased to announce today that Creative Commons is taking on leadership and stewardship of the Open COVID Pledge. Earlier this year, CC joined forces with an international group of researchers, scientists, academics, and lawyers seeking to accelerate the development of diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics, medical equipment, and software solutions that might be used to assist in the fight against COVID-19. The result was the Open COVID Pledge, a project that offers a simple way for universities, companies, and others to make their patents and copyrights available to the public to be utilized in the current public health crisis. Users of Creative Commons licenses will be familiar with the Open COVID Pledge’s approach. Like CC licenses, the Open COVID Pledge offers free, standard, public licenses that anyone can use to remove unnecessary obstacles to the dissemination of knowledge.

Carolina Botero Appointed to the UNESCO Open Science Advisory Committee

UNESCO has launched a two-year consultation process to build a global consensus on open science. The consultation process includes the establishment of an Open Science Advisory Committee appointed by the Director-General of UNESCO that will be in charged of drafting the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science so that we can have a "regionally balanced, inclusive and transparent consultation. Carolina Botero, Director of Fundacion Karisma and Host of the next Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest has been named to the Open Science Advisory Committee.

Digital Pirates: Policing Intellectual Property In Brazil

Digital technology has created an intellectual property standoff. One one side, the IP protectors (or "maximalists") fear piracy. One the other, the pirates rail against patent trolls, large corporations, and acquisitive mega-stars. Such battles about digital textuality manifest in different ways around the globe, igniting local debates about policing, expression, and imitation. This book offers the idea of "circulatory legitimacy" as a way to explain how both sides are talking past each other. Its aim is to open new spaces for policy, creativity, and governance.

WHO Recognizes the Open COVID Pledge as a Means to Advance Research and Science in the Fight Against COVID-19

[Diane Peters] Today, under the leadership of the World Health Organization, more than three dozen member countries and other organizations announced their support of the WHO’s Solidarity Call to Action. We are pleased that within this statement of principles, the Open COVID Pledge is featured as a mechanism that allows holders of valuable COVID intellectual property to meet the WHO’s call to action by immediately and freely making IP available to anyone for purposes of combating the disease. Through the generosity and vision of pledgors, this intellectual property can be used to develop and rapidly innovate medicines, test kits, vaccines, equipment, software and other technology to mitigate the pandemic’s impact. We count among our current Pledgors many technology giants, as well as research projects and institutes.

The 73rd World Health Assembly and Resolution on COVID-19: Quest of Global Solidarity for Equitable Access to Health Products

[Nirmalya Syam, Mirza Alas and Vitor Ido] Abstract: The annual meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA) of the World Health Organization (WHO) held virtually on 18-19 May 2020 discussed the global response to COVID-19 and adopted Resolution WHA73.1 on “COVID-19 Response”... Though the Resolution makes a commitment of ensuring access to medical products, vaccines and equipment for all countries in a timely manner, there are no concrete actions defined. In order to ensure global equitable access, WHO Members should make full use of the flexibilities of the Agreement on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and also enhance transparency of costs of research and development (R&D), openness and sharing of data, tools and technologies, and build more capacity through technology transfer.

Consultation on Implementing Marrakesh in Brazil Closes This Week

Last month, the Brazilian Secretariat of Culture (Secretaria Especial de Cultura) launched a 30 day public consultation on the Presidential Decree regulating the Marrakesh Treaty implementation, ending this week. Contributions can be made directly on the platform or by filling the form on the site. One of the key questions in the consultation process involves whether Brazil should adopt a commercial availability requirement.

COVID-19: The duty to document does not cease in a crisis, it becomes more essential

This statement about the duty to document was developed by ICA and the International Conference of Information Commissioners, supported by ARMA International, CODATA, Digital Preservation Coalition, Research Data Alliance, UNESCO Memory of the World and World Data System. The statement is built on three principles: Decisions must be documented; Records and data should be secured and preserved in all sectors; and The security, preservation, and access to digital content should be facilitated during the shutdown.

Supreme Court Rules Annotated State Legal Codes Cannot Be Copyrighted

The Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 that copyright protection does not apply to annotations in state's annotated legal code. The ruling in Georgia v. Public Resource.Org affects 23 states, two territories and Washington, D.C. PIJIP Professor Peter Jaszi commented that “This is the beginning of the end of a long journey toward opening all judicial and legislative materials to the public – the modern stage of which began more than thirty-five years ago in the West Publishing cases. The struggle to open governmental information at every level of the administrative state continues.”

Pharmaceutical Monopolies, Hostility to Global Cooperation, Limited Production Threaten Coronavirus Response

[Public Citizen] Open science, ramped-up manufacturing, fair pricing and sharing of technology, among other actions, are urgently needed to reduce loss of life during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 254 groups including Public Citizen said today. The groups released a list of principles calling for action from governments, international agencies, manufacturers, donors and development partners.

Amazon, Facebook, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, Microsoft, and Sandia National Laboratories join “Open COVID Pledge” to make patents freely available in the fight against COVID-19

[Open COVID Pledge Press Release] Amazon, Facebook, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), IBM, Microsoft, and Sandia National Laboratories announced today that they are joining the Open COVID Pledge by making all of their patents freely available to the public for use in the fight against COVID-19. Together, the group holds hundreds of thousands of patents and is offering to grant a temporary license that enables the public to utilize any of the pledgors’ patents in the research, development, and deployment of medical equipment, network products, software solutions, and other technologies to assist in this urgent public health crisis.