This comment is submitted on behalf of the undersigned legal academics. We are members of the Project on International Intellectual Property and the Public Interest, coordinated by the Program on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest (PIJIP). We write to…
A world leader in public health, Australia introduced plain packaging of tobacco products. Julia Gillard – the Prime Minister of Australia at the time responsible for plain packaging – has observed: “Since 1 December 2012, cigarettes packets in Australia do…
Excerpt from a joint position paper by the Commons Network, Medicines in Europe Forum, International Society of Drugs Bulletins, Health Action International Europe, UAEM Europe, and Salud Por Derecho. The full paper is posted here, under a Creative Commons license…
The USTR recently issued two notices seeking membership applications for its Trade Advisory Committee System. One notice seeks “Industry” advisors and another seeks those for a new “Public Interest” committee. Each notice announces that the Committees will be established “[p]ursuant…
What’s your definition of the “public interest” when it comes to law and lawmaking? Is it a unitary concept, where we consider the good of society as a whole? If so, you might think that the public’s interest is in…
Congratulations on your recent appointment as Chair of the Senate Finance Committee. As technology companies with business models inextricably linked to the Internet, we admire your work as a staunch defender of users and online rights—most prominently when you led…
We write to express our deep concern with reports about proposed provisions regarding intellectual property, investment and pharmaceuticals reimbursement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations (TPP). We believe those provisions if included in the final agreement, would severely threaten access to…
USTR has proposed a differential treatment approach to the Trans Pacific Partnership intellectual property negotiations. The text would continue to include numerous TRIPS-Plus obligations favorable to branded pharmaceutical companies that restrict countries’ ability to craft laws and execute policies intended…
Yesterday the Cato Institute held an event titled “Intellectual Property in the Trans-Pacific Partnership: National Interest or Corporate Handout?” The panel, moderated by Cato’s Simon Lester, featured Tom Giovanetti (Institute for Policy Innovation), William Watson (Cato), and Margot Kaminski (Yale…
[Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, Link, CC-BY-SA)]Today the German Pirate party published a leaked version of the intellectual property (IP) rights chapter of the EU – Canada trade agreement (CETA), version as of 17 December 2013. See Carta blog:…
USTR demands for hyper-secrecy in the Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) continue to be a major block to continuing negotiations. The current issue under discussion is access to US proposals by EU member states — which are of…
[Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, Link (CC-BT-SA)] With other representatives of civil society organisations and business stakeholders, I spent an afternoon at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs talking about the ongoing talks on a proposed EU – US…