Advocating for a world where intellectual
property law serves the public interest.

Rep. Schakowsky, Sens. Brown and McCain Introduce PRICED Act to Speed Generic Competition for Biologic Drugs

Jan Schakowsky and U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown and John McCain introduced H.R. 5573; the Price Relief, Innovation and Competition for Essential Drugs (PRICED) Act. As reported on congress.gov, the bill would “amend the Public Health Service Act to shorten the exclusivity period for brand name biological products from 12 to 7 years.” (The full text […]

Wide Education Exception Is the Best Case Scenario to #Fixcopyright in EU

[Anna Mazgal, Communia Association, Link (CC-0)] The education exception benefits teachers, students, and researchers who need access to all types of educational and informational resources that are often protected by copyright. This exception balances the right to education with the rights of authors. Maintaining the balance is never easy, and some issues still await their […]

Fictional Claims: Why Kids Are Not Suffering With Canada’s Copyright Fair Dealing Rules

[Reposted from michaelgeist.ca, Link (CC-BY)] In recent weeks, there has been some media coverage claiming that Canadian educational materials are disappearing in the face of copyright fair dealing rules. For example, several weeks ago, Globe and Mail writer Kate Taylor wrote a column on copyright featuring the incendiary headline that “Kids Will Suffer if Canada’s […]

Taylor Wessing International IP Index, Based on Surveys of IP Owners, Ranks U.S. #24 Out of 43 Countries

I’ve written before on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s International Intellectual Property Index, which ranks the strength of countries’ intellectual property protection based on publicly available information about the IP landscape in each country. This includes laws, regulations, court decisions, academic studies, analysis from bodies like OECD, and news stories. As I mentioned in my […]

European Council Approves First-Ever Analysis Of Drug Prices With Look At IP Rights

[William New for IP Watch, Link (CC-BY-NC-SA)] The 28 European Union governments today were expected to give final approval to a first-ever plan to analyse medicines competition in Europe, with reference to drug prices, generics and biosimilars, and intellectual property rights. The final version was watered after what sources said was heavy industry lobbying, compared […]

The Economics of Book Digitization and the Google Books Litigation

Author: Hannibal Travis Abstract: This piece explores the digitization and uploading to the Internet of full-text books, book previews in the form of chapters or snippets, and databases that index the contents of book collections. Along the way, it will describe the economics of copyright, the “digital dilemma,” and controversies surrounding fair use arguments in […]