Day February 20, 2018

Don’t Be Afraid of Compulsory Licenses Despite US Threats: Special 301 Reports 1998-2017 – Listing Concerns but Taking Little Action

For the past 20 years in its annual Special 301 Reports, the US has consistently criticized countries that do not have compulsory licensing standards that Big Pharma likes, that threaten to issue compulsory licenses, or that have actually had the temerity to issue a compulsory license... Despite its many complaints, veiled threats, and backroom maneuvers against compulsory licenses, the USTR’s bark has been much, much louder than it’s bite. 

Intellectual Property before the European Court of Human Rights

[Christophe Geiger and Elena Izyumenko] Abstract: In the past years, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, or Strasbourg Court), Europe’s principal human rights watchdog, has played an ever larger role in the resolution of intellectual property (IP) disputes. The ECtHR’s engagement in IP adjudication has already influenced national judges, who increasingly have recourse to human rights to solve cases between private parties, thus calling for closer scrutiny of the Court’s practice on this matter. The present chapter provides the first comprehensive overview of the ECtHR case law on IP for the period since the Court’s inception (in January 1959) until today (February 2018).

European Educators Ask for a Better Copyright

[Electronic Information for Libraries] EIFL joins 53 organizations representing teachers, students, vocational trainers, researchers, scientists, librarians, archivists and museum professionals calling on European legislators for a copyright framework that properly facilitates modern, innovative education in Europe. The joint letter, sent to members of the European Parliament by COMMUNIA, an international association that advocates for copyright reform in education, highlights four key problems with the current proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM).