Australian students recreate Martin Shkreli price-hike drug in school lab; Guardian, 11/30/16

Melissa Davey, Guardian; Australian students recreate Martin Shkreli price-hike drug in school lab:

"He said the open nature of the project demystified science and revealed the number of roadblocks the students had faced in coming up with the final product, which involved three complicated chemical steps.

“With science results you can be presented with a polished finished product that hides the false steps along the way,” he said. “The students’ real-time diary highlights their whole process, and is a very transparent way of doing things.”...

He said unfortunately the students would not be able to sell their drug to the US market. While the drug can be bought in Australia for about A$13 for a packet of 50, there are a number of complicated legal roadblocks in the way of producing and selling it in the US.

“Turing has the exclusive rights to sell it, even though the drug is no longer under patent,” Todd said. “The ridiculousness of this legal loophole means if we wanted to launch it as drug in the US we’d have to go through a whole new clinical trial because we would have to compare the Sydney Grammar stuff with the officially sanctioned stuff, and Turing would have to give us the drug to allow those comparisons to be made."

Michael James Delligatti, Creator of the Big Mac, Dies at 98; New York Times, 11/30/16

Kevin Rawlinson, New York Times; Michael James Delligatti, Creator of the Big Mac, Dies at 98:

"Most memorable was the ad campaign, begun in 1974, in which actual customers tried to recite the ingredients in a Big Mac, with comic results, before a chorus jumped in and smoothly sang the now-famous jingle.

“It wasn’t like discovering the light bulb,” Mr. Delligatti told John F. Love, the author of “McDonald’s: Behind the Arches” (1986). “The bulb was already there. All I did was screw it in the socket.”...

...[T]he sales remain huge, leading many to believe that Mr. Delligatti, as its inventor, must have reaped a windfall worth billions.

Not so. “All I got was a plaque,” he told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2007."

Summer Project Turns Into Leukemia Testing Breakthrough; New York Times, 11/28/16

Donald G. McNeil Jr., New York Times; Summer Project Turns Into Leukemia Testing Breakthrough:

'Gleevec, which made almost $5 billion for Novartis last year, has been at the center of a long battle between pharmaceutical companies and activists fighting price increases. The drug cost about $26,000 per year in 2001, and Novartis repeatedly raised the price even as competitors emerged; early this year, it was more than $120,000.

Those who support broader access to medicines argue that poor countries should reject patents and make generic versions of leukemia drugs. In 2013, India’s highest court struck down Novartis’s patent application for Gleevec, opening the way for generics. They now cost about $400 a year in India and about $9,000 in Canada."

Jury Finds 'Jersey Boys' Creators Liable for Copyright Infringment; Hollywood Reporter, 11/29/16

Ashley Cullins, Hollywood Reporter; Jury Finds 'Jersey Boys' Creators Liable for Copyright Infringment:

"The jury on Monday found that DeVito did not grant an implied license for the creators of the stage play to use his book as source material — and attributed 10 percent of Jersey Boys' success to infringement of the book."

Effective online copyright law a thorny issue; China Daily, 11/30/16

Zhang Huibin, China Daily; Effective online copyright law a thorny issue:

"Data from Tencent indicate the value of internet works, including IPR deals, was 420 billion yuan ($60.72 billion) in 2015－and it is expected to cross 560 billion yuan this year.

Along with many benefits, the internet has also created difficulties for copyright protection. The reuse of traditional works on the internet in new forms, such as through digitalized disposal, show the efforts to protect copyright have not been fully successful. China started amending its copyright law for the third time in July 2011. A series of copyright dilemmas, such as combating cyber literature piracy, illegal online video aggregation, non-payment for music and live broadcasts of sports events, pose a major problem for the healthy development of the internet sector...

How to effectively protect copyrights as well as ensure the public continues to share authorized content are pressing issues for country's copyright law. Lenient laws will compromise the rights of copyright owners, but very strict measures for copyright protection could restrict the sharing of even many authorized works by the public. Legislative, judicial and law enforcement departments should, therefore, weigh the pros and cons and try to strike the right balance in copyright legislation and protection."

The TPP wasn't killed by Donald Trump – our protests worked; Guardian, 11/28/16

Evan Greer, Tom Morello, and Evangeline Lilly, Guardian; The TPP wasn't killed by Donald Trump – our protests worked:

"As more and more people learned about what the TPP really meant for them and their families, it became politically toxic, to the point that no major party candidate for president could openly support it.

This was a sign that the TPP was on its deathbed, but with the threat of a last-minute push during the “lame duck” session after the election, we needed to be sure. So we targeted undecided lawmakers with protests and flew inflatable blimps outside their offices. We harnessed the power of music to draw huge crowds across the country to “Rock Against the TPP” concerts and teach-ins, taking our opposition to the TPP into the cultural mainstream. We tuned out the chorus of voices that told us that corporate power would always prevail in the end. And finally, we claimed our victory.

Now more than ever, it’s crucial that Americans understand how the TPP was really defeated. An organized and educated public can take on concentrated wealth and power and win. With four years of new battles ahead of us, this is a story we must commit to memory, and a lesson we must take to heart."

On Eve Of WIPO Traditional Knowledge Negotiations, Nations Swap Experiences; Intellectual Property Watch, 11/28/16

Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch; On Eve Of WIPO Traditional Knowledge Negotiations, Nations Swap Experiences:

"A seminar was organised by the World Intellectual Property Organization to provide a discussion platform on the eve of this week’s meeting on the protection of traditional knowledge, and as a way for countries to share systems of protection. Panellists presented views on possible graduated protection for different sorts of traditional knowledge.

The WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) is meeting from 28 November to 2 December.

This week, delegates are expected to discuss a list [pdf] of outstanding and pending issues. This includes the use and meanings of certain terms and concepts, such as terms describing the diffusion of traditional knowledge (TK). Criteria for eligibility of the protection, and whether beneficiaries should include nations and states, are also on the list."