News and Commentary
I’ve written a commentary on the need to make the COVID-19 vaccines open via compulsory licensing, the suspension of intellectual property protections abroad, and voluntary measures by those holding patent rights to share the necessary information.
Priti Patnaik of the Geneva Health Files has a substack post about the possibility of waivers for developing countries’ enforcement of intellectual property rights for COVID-19 technologies. While all the usual suspects (the UK, Switzerland, etc.) are still opposed to the waiver, support from Dr. Fauci and other figures to loosen restrictions on IP use may do their part to reduce some of the opposition to waivers.
Ally Boutelle and John Villasenor of the Brookings Institution review the proposed European Copyright directive, and the associated pitfalls with requirements that large platforms proactively police infringing works which have been flagged by the rights holders. This comes with added privacy concerns for the users of allegedly infringing works, which easily run counter to Europe’s GDPR.
Bill Watson has a new post on the ITC Policy Project discussing the abuse of the ITC by Koninklijke Philips in seeking an exclusion order for the importation of cellular modules. This is particularly problematic because Philips is a firm which does not engage in much manufacturing, and is largely focused on licensing its technology instead.
At ProMarket, Robin Feldman discusses her recent research on the increases in drug prices as it relates to a lack of transparency and complex system of rebates. She found that while rebates are rising, the prices of branded drugs are rising much faster. Generic drugs’ after-rebate prices, on the other hand, have remained flat.
Katharine Trendacosta and Cara Gagliano of the Electronic Frontier Foundation have a rundown of the state of copyright law in 2021 based on changes over the past year and what the next will look like.
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