Analysis at the intersection of intellectual
property law and the public interest.
[Updated Dec 3, 2013]. USTR released a document describing several policy changes in its Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement proposals on provisions related to the prices of medicines. It is not known whether these changes are related to public pressure that has been mounting on USTR after the leaks of its positions on Wikileaks last […]
Investor-state dispute resolution is a growing concern for governments like Canada that should want to preserve policy space for regulating business activity. From licenses for fracking, mining, and timber cutting, to health and safety regulations, to labor policy, and to intellectual property rules, countries are finding their regulatory rules and decisions attached by investors whose […]
Forthcoming in: Ch. Geiger (ed), “Research Handbook on Human Rights and Intellectual Property”, Cheltenham, UK / Northampton, MA, Edward Elgar (2014) Abstract: The relationship between the protection of intellectual property (IP) and human rights has been examined in a growing number of publications. Most focus on the substantive law overlaps, interfaces, tensions and maybe even […]
At last week’s round of Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations in Salt Lake City, access to medicines campaigners reported that the U.S. administration tabled a new proposal aimed at protecting brand name biologic drug companies from generic competition through a twelve year period of data exclusivity (a form of protection separate and in addition to […]
[Andy for TorrentFreak, Link (CC-BY-NC)] ISPs have condemned negotiations on a potential update of Swiss copyright law that is being influenced by the U.S. Government and entertainment companies. According to the ISPs the secret anti-piracy discussions, from which they were excluded, have so far yielded “useless” proposals including web blocking and file-sharer warnings. “We reject […]
“If you want to kill a trade agreement, or any effort to make new law or policy, keep it secret for an excessive amount of time and leave the timing of its eventual release to the law or policy’s skeptics and enemies.” That should be the lesson of today’s leak of the Intellectual Property (IP) […]