Intellectual property waiver for COVID vaccines should be expanded to include treatments and tests; The Conversation, November 21, 2022

Deborah Gleeson, Associate Professor in Public Health, La Trobe University, Dianne Nicol
Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Tasmania, James Scheibner
Lecturer in Law, Flinders University, The Conversation;

 Intellectual property waiver for COVID vaccines should be expanded to include treatments and tests

"Low and middle-income countries have been impacted disproportionately by the pandemic so far, suffering 85% of the estimated 14.9 million excess deaths in 2020 and 2021. 

Globally, progress in reducing extreme poverty was set back three to four years during 2020–21. But low-income countries lost eight to nine years of progress.

Expanding the WTO decision on COVID vaccines to include treatments and tests could be vital to reduce the health burden on poorer countries from COVID and enable them to recover from the pandemic. The Australian government should get behind this initiative and encourage other countries to do the same."

After 15 Years In WTO, China Still Weak On Many IP Rights Rules, US Says; Intellectual Property Watch, 1/10/17

William New, Intellectual Property Watch; 

After 15 Years In WTO, China Still Weak On Many IP Rights Rules, US Says:

"Innovation and intellectual property rights have set the United States apart from competitors in recent history, and China seems intent on closing that gap any way it can. A US trade office report out this week on China’s compliance with World Trade Organization rules 15 years after accession show the magnitude of China’s continuing compliance problems related to intellectual property rights. 

“Serious concerns,” “problems,” “challenges,” “weakness,” “insufficient.” These and many other negative terms fill the 200-page report’s sections describing China’s treatment of intellectual property rights. There is plenty of progress cited too, but the report reads as an open to-do list with new issues arising all the time. One question is how much of this behaviour could be brought to the WTO Dispute Settlement Body. Another might be what the new US administration is going to do differently about this list.

The Office of the US Trade Representative’s 2016 Report to Congress on China’s WTO Compliance is available here [pdf]."

Your life will some day end; ACTA will live on; Ars Technica, 3/19/10

Nate Anderson, Ars Technica; Your life will some day end; ACTA will live on:

"The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) isn't just another secret treaty—it's a way of life. If ACTA passes in anything like its current form, it will create an entirely new international secretariat to administer and extend the agreement.

Knowledge Ecology International got its hands on more of the leaked ACTA text this week, including a chapter on "Institutional Arrangements" that has not leaked before. The chapter makes clear that ACTA will be far more than a standard trade agreement; it appears to be nothing less than an attempt to make a new international institution that will handle some of the duties of groups like the WTO and WIPO.

Why bother? Well, from the perspective of countries like the US, the existing institutions have problems. For one, they feature a huge number of nations, some of whom have blocked some of the anti-counterfeiting provisions desired by the US and others. Call this the UN problem—getting much done with so many people in attendance can be tricky, and ACTA has become a "coalition of the willing" who have decided to go form their own club instead.

But WIPO, especially, has also opened up over the last decade, and now has robust rules for the participation of consumer groups and other non-governmental organizations. It also requires far more transparency, with the publication of proposals and draft texts throughout a negotiating process. As we have seen too clearly, ACTA has none of this.

Jamie Love of KEI claims that the US Trade Representative has already "told members of Congress it is their intention to marginalize the participation by consumer interest organizations in the new forum."

The new ACTA secretariat won't be a mere administrator. The leaked chapter makes clear that the new governing body will "make recommendations regarding the implementation of ACTA" and will itself "identify and monitor techniques of piracy and counterfeiting."

In other ACTA news, a separate chapter has also leaked, and in it the EU wants to make sure that criminal penalties exist for "cases of willful trademark counterfeiting and copyright or related rights piracy on a commercial scale." On a "commercial scale" doesn't mean that such infringement must be done for financial gain, however; it also includes "significant willful copyright or related rights infringements that have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain."

Despite the public support of President Obama, ACTA is running into bad press throughout the world. The European Parliament last week even managed to pass a strong resolution of displeasure with the ACTA process, which passed 633-13."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/your-life-will-some-day-end-acta-will-live-on.ars

US says copyright piracy in China still 'high'; Sydney Morning Herald, 12/23/09

P. Parameswaran; Sydney Morning Herald; US says copyright piracy in China still 'high':

"Copyright piracy in China remains at "unacceptably high levels," causing "serious harm" to American businesses, the top US trade official said in an annual report to US Congress.

US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in the mandatory report on China's compliance with its World Trade Organization accession obligations that Beijing was not taking adequate steps to enforce intellectual property rights laws.

He said enforcement of China's copyright protection "remains a significant challenge."

The report cited other "priority" trade issues such as industrial policies, trading rights and distribution services, agriculture and services, but indicated piracy is a key issue where China has made little progress.

"Despite repeated anti-piracy campaigns in China and an increasing number of civil IPR (intellectual property rights) cases in Chinese courts, counterfeiting and piracy remain at unacceptably high levels and continue to cause serious harm to US businesses across many sectors of the economy," the 121-page report said.

The US copyright industries estimate that losses in 2008 due to piracy were about 3.5 billion US dollars for the music recording and software industries alone, it said.

"These figures indicate little or no overall improvement over the previous year."

China is among nations in the annual intellectual property rights blacklist of the US Trade Representative's office.

China acceded to the World Trade Organization eight years ago. The terms of its accession called for China to implement numerous specific commitments over time.

All of China's key commitments should have been phased in three years ago."

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/us-says-copyright-piracy-in-china-still-high-20091223-lctx.html

For whom the net tolls; Guardian, 11/10/09

Cory Doctorow, Guardian; For whom the net tolls:

Rupert Murdoch wants to remake the web as a toll both, with him in the collector's seat, but the net won't shift to his will

"What, exactly, is Rupert Murdoch thinking? First, he announces that all of Newscorp's websites will erect paywalls like the one employed by the Wall Street Journal (however, Rupert managed to get the details of the WSJ's wall wrong – no matter, he's a "big picture" guy). Then, he announced that Google and other search engines were "plagiarists" who "rip off" Newscorp's content, and that once the paywalls are up (a date that keeps slipping farther into the future, almost as though the best IT people work for someone who's not Rupert "I Hate the Net" Murdoch!) he'll be blocking Google and the other "parasites" from his sites, making all of Newscorp's properties invisible to search engines. Then, as a kind of loonie cherry atop a banana split with extra crazy sauce, Rupert announces that "fair use is illegal" and he'll be abolishing it shortly.

What is he thinking? We'll never know, of course, but I have a theory...

Now, what about fair use being illegal? At a guess, I'd say that some Richelieu figure in Newscorp's legal department has been passing some evil whispers to Rupert about international copyright law. Specifically, about the Berne Convention – a centuries-old copyright accord that's been integrated into many other trade agreements, including the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and its "three-step test" for whether a copyright exemption is legal.

Copyright exemptions are all the rights that copyright gives to the public, not to creators or publishers, and "three-steps" describes the principles that Berne signatory countries must look to when crafting their own copyright exemptions.

Three steps limits copyright exemptions to:
1. certain special cases …
2. which do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work; and …
3. do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rights holder.

Now, arguably, many countries fair dealing or fair use rules don't meet these criteria (the US rules on VCRs, book lending, cable TV, jukeboxes, radio plays, and a hundred other cases are favourite villains in these discussions; but many European rules are also difficult to cram into the three-steps frame). And I've certainly heard many corporate law mover-shakers announce that with the right lawsuit, you could get trade courts to force this country or that country to get rid of its fair dealing or fair use provisions.

But this view of international copyright lacks an appreciation of the subtleties of international trade, namely: big, powerful countries can ignore trade courts and treaty rules when it's in their interest to do so, because no one can afford to stop trading with them.

The US gets $1 trillion added to its GDP every year thanks to liberal fair use rules. If the WTO says that it has to ban video recorders or eliminate compulsory licenses on music compositions (or shut down search engines!), it will just ignore the WTO. The US is an old hand at ignoring the United Nations. The US owes billions to the UN in back-dues and shows no signs of repaying it. The fact that the WTO looks upon the US with disapproval will cause precisely nothing to happen in the American legislative branch.

And, if the WTO tries to get other countries to embargo the US, it will quickly learn that China and other factory states can't afford to stop shipping plastic gewgaws, pocket-sized electronics, and cheap textiles to America. And furthermore, other countries can't afford to boycott China – because those countries can't afford to allow a plastic gewgaw and cheap textile gap to emerge with America.

Of course, the elimination of fair use would present many problems to Newscorp – because, as with all media companies, Newscorp relies heavily on copyright exemptions to produce its own programming. I'm sure that if there's a lawyer who's put this idea into Rupert's head that she knows this, but I'm likewise sure that she's perfectly willing to expand the legal department to the thousands of lawyers it would take to negotiate permission for all those uses if fair use goes away. Especially if all those lawyers report to her.

That's my theory: Rupert isn't a technophobic loon who will send his empire to the bottom of the ocean while waging war on search engines. Instead, he's an out-of-touch moustache-twirler who's set his sights on remaking the web as a toll booth (with him in the collector's seat), and his plan hinges on a touchingly naive approach to geopolitics. Either way, old Rupert shows every sign of degenerating into a colourful Howard Hughes figure in a housecoat, demanding that reality shift to his will."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/10/rupert-murdoch-charging-for-internet

Potential of US Copyright Agenda to Endanger Freedom of Expression in China; IP Osgoode, 4/17/09

Julian Ho via IP Osgoode; Potential of US Copyright Agenda to Endanger Freedom of Expression in China:

"One of the most prevalent criticisms leveled against China today is the lack of human rights afforded to its citizens. This is particularly so in the area of civil and political rights, where China’s single-party unitary rule has made political prisoners of pro-democracy activists. Western advocacy groups have applied political pressure to convince the Chinese government to reduce its constraints on the human right of freedom of expression. At the same time, however, the American government has also worked hard through WTO means to toughen China’s intellectual property laws. Is this a conflicting position to take as it pertains to tougher copyright laws? Given the background of copyright law in China, it may very well be."

http://www.iposgoode.ca/2009/04/potential-of-us-copyright-agenda-to-endanger/

Tough sentences in China over huge piracy ring: Microsoft, Sydney Morning Herald, 1/1/09

Via Sydney Morning Herald: Tough sentences in China over huge piracy ring: Microsoft:

"The sentences were the "stiffest ever meted out for intellectual property rights violations in China," said a report on the verdicts by the popular Chinese Internet portal Sina.com...

Washington filed a case in April 2007 at the World Trade Organisation over widespread copyright piracy in China, a practice that US companies say deprives them of billions of US dollars in sales each year.

In November, China's assistant commerce minister Chong Quan told US industry and government officials at a gathering in Beijing that Washington must take into account its difficulties as a developing country in tackling copyright breaches.

But China also has recently touted tougher anti-piracy laws as evidence of its resolve to crush such violations."

http://news.smh.com.au/world/tough-sentences-in-china-over-huge-piracy-ring-microsoft-20090101-78dk.html