Tuesday 9 March 2010
Today the Brazilian government published a list of US goods that will be subject to higher import taxes when entering Brazil, according to a press release.
This follows a WTO dispute settlement decision giving Brazil the authorisation to suspend Brazil’s concessions and other obligations in the WTO towards the US which was found in violation of international trade rules over its cotton subsidies (IPW, WTO/TRIPS, 7 September 2009-).
The list, which corresponds to retaliation in amount of US (...)
Friday 5 March 2010
Recently the Brazilian Prosecutor General’s Office manifested favorably to the annullment of pharmaceutical pipeline patents at ADI 4234 at the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF). ADI 4234 is a law suit that argues the unconstitutionality of pipeline patents. Read more about the discussion here-
Source: GTPI and ABIA
Tuesday 2 March 2010
by KEI-
On 12 February 2010, the Council of the European Union distributed a table drawn up by the Commission Services, outlining the positions of various counties regarding civil enforcement and the special requirements relating to the Internet. A copy of this 44 page document was leaked on March 1, 2010.
The following are Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) comments on some parts of the EU document.
Types of IP covered
On page 2, the EU insists that "All IPR" should be included in the (...)
Monday 1 March 2010
Last Thursday, Center for Tecnology and Society was one of the spots that hosted a wireside chat with Lawrence Lessig, one of the main voices from the free culture movement.
Transmitted from Harvard Law School, in partnership with Open Video Alliance-, it was hosted by more then 40 streaming locations, including Rio de Janeiro, Delhi, Sao Paulo, Toronto, New York, and many more, allowing an worldwide interactive conversation with Lessig about copyright and fair use at the digital era. (...)
Monday 22 February 2010
By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch
Ensuring public access to knowledge while supporting intellectual property rights cuts across broad areas such as internet availability, public health, education and culture, climate change, and basic technical standards. And while the non-profit movement that has worked to encourage access is facing serious challenges this year, they are set to fight it out in the various fora related to essential drugs, books and academic journals, and (...)
Thursday 18 February 2010
by ICTSD
On 11 February Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, approved legislation that allows the suspension and limitation of the IP rights of citizens or companies domiciled in countries that violate WTO rules. The legislation, which effectively enables cross- retaliation, comprised the following measures: (a) suspension and limitation of IP rights; (b) alteration of the rules and procedures that secure IP protection, mainly provided by the Brazilian Patent Office and the Ministry (...)
Monday 8 February 2010
According to the Science and Development Network, the Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced the release 13.500 malaria drug candidates into the public domain as part of its ’open innovation’ agenda. The report posted on their website can be quoted just as bellow:
Chief executive Andrew Witty outlined the company’s strategy for increasing its intellectual property flexibility and altering its business model to tackle neglected tropical diseases.
"We’re trying to identify a (...)
Tuesday 2 February 2010
Communia Network, a thematic group established by the European Union focused on public policies for copyright and public domain, has just launched the Manifesto of the Public Domain. The document outlines the general principles and recommendations on how to promote a balance between copyright protection and free access to works that shall be considered as public domain.
Willing to support to this innitiative and spread the idea of the Manifesto thoughout Brazil and Portuguese speaking (...)
Thursday 28 January 2010
The 14th Standing Committee on the Law of Patents has just made available a draft text of a Future Work Agenda for Member States’ consideration. The Brazilian proposal on exceptions and limitations to patent rights has been mentioned on the document in order to outline further actions.
According to the Brazilian delegation, the proposal: "aims at contributing to the discussion of exceptions and limitations to patent rights. . . While not purporting to cover all interfaces of the matter (...)
Tuesday 26 January 2010
On January 15, 2010 the Permanent Mission of Brazil to the World Trade Organization and other economic organizations in Geneva submitted a proposal to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The Brazilian note verbale to WIPO notes that the proposal:
"aims at contributing to the discussion of exceptions and limitations to patent rights. . . While not purporting to cover all interfaces of the matter with development concerns, it emphasizes the importance of promoting a wide (...)
Tuesday 19 January 2010
On Monday, 18 January 2010, Brazil delivered the following statement to the 126th session of the Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) under agenda item 4.3 "public health, innovation and intellectual property". In her intervention, the delegate of Brazil stressed,
"Access to medication is a critical issue. The Global Strategy refers to the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health and states the very fact that the price of medicines is one of the factors that hinder (...)
Tuesday 12 January 2010
Brazil is going through a remarkable procedure for the establishment of a civil-rights based regulatory framework for internet. On October, 29th, the Ministry of Justice, in partnership with CTS-FGV, held an event at Fundação Getúlio Vargas to launch a public consultation in order to draft our civil regulatory framework for internet, the so called "Marco Civil". Ministry of Justice, Tarso Genro and the Executive Secretary from the Ministry of Culture, Alfredo Manevy, joined a round table to (...)
Monday 7 December 2009
On 1 December, World AIDS Day, the Brazilian Working Group on Intellectual Property (GTPI/ Rebrip) published a list with the greatest initiatives for increasing access to antiretroviral medicines in 2009. Also, the GTPI listed the major villains - that by omission or financial interests - put the commercial profit above the right to health. In the list, there are companies, Brazilian politicians, among other categories.
Check the list!-
Source: (...)
Wednesday 2 December 2009
Several non-governmental organisations used the World Aids Day to promote the patent pool initiative underway at UNITAID that is expected by proponents to enhance access to second line HIV/AIDS drugs. Action Against AIDS, a German NGO, released thousands of balloons in capsule form over Berlin while handing over 28,000 to representatives of Abbott, Bristol-Meyer-Squibb and Gilead.
The campaign requests from the pharmaceutical companies to give up patent applications in India to make way (...)
Friday 13 November 2009
The heavy punishment of illegal file sharers on the web will be counter-productive in the global fight against Internet piracy and copyright infringement, the director-general of a United Nations agency said on Thursday.
Francis Gurry of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) said music copyright protection was "under the most severe stress" and the problem will likely spread to films as web connections speed up.
The music industry has been hit by rampant Internet piracy and (...)