The British government has announced that it will make government-funded research freely available beginning next year. The Research Council’s UK announcement states that the new policy “will apply to all qualifying publications being submitted for publication from 1 April 2013”…
We stand for a free and open Internet. We support transparent and participatory processes for making Internet policy and the establishment of five basic principles: Expression: Don’t censor the Internet. Access: Promote universal access to fast and affordable networks. Openness:…
In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet on 27 June 2012 (Hearing: Protecting Patents, Trade Secrets, and Market Access), the Deputy Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, who also serves…
A post by Creative Commons Poland describes the government’s Digital School initiative, a section of which involves government funding for the creation of e-textbooks. All of the books created with the funding will be “made available under the Creative Commons…
The California Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill (SB 1053) that would create an digital library of openly available textbooks, and would allow students to buy hard copies for $20. The textbooks will be published under creative commons licenses, allowing faculty…
The online petition urging President Obama “to act now to implement open access policies for all federal agencies that fund scientific research” has generated over 25,000 signatures. All petitions posted to the administration’s “We the People” petition site that generate…
The UN Development Programme and UNAIDS released a joint policy brief this week at workshop on the “Use of TRIPS Flexibilities and Access to Affordable ARVs in Asia.” The paper notes that the use of TRIPS flexibilities has expanded the…
[Reposted from CIS-India.org] There are some welcome provisions in the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012, and some worrisome provisions. Pranesh Prakash examines five positive changes, four negative ones, and notes the several missed opportunities. The larger concern, though, is that many…
The petition to the White House to require public access to the published results of taxpayer funded research has taken off – gaining more than 13,500 signatures in less than three days. In order to get a response, a petition…
This overview of copyright flexibilities in Israel consists of two parts. First, answers to a questionnaire on the state of copyright law, copyright flexibilities, and the current political context of copyright, which were provided by Michael Birnhack and Niva Elkin-Koren.…
Just as Novartis appealed from an order denying its patent application on Glivec, Bayer has now appealed the granting of a compulsory license on Nexavar. Rather than honestly state that it likes selling its cancer medicines for $67,000 to only…
Both sides appeal in ongoing civil society lawsuit for compulsory license A Colombian administrative judge has ruled that Abbott Laboratories and the Ministry of Health threatened and violated collective rights to public health by maintaining the price of an HIV…