From the.solipsist at gmail.com Fri Jun 1 20:05:46 2007 From: the.solipsist at gmail.com (Pranesh Prakash) Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 20:05:46 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Putting people's health before company profits Message-ID: <4785f1e20706010735i581b02a2g27ff6580622e8feb@mail.gmail.com> Dear All, This piece by Siddharth Varadarajan appeared in today's edition of the Hindu. It details how Brazil has issued a compulsory licence for Efavirenz, an anti-retroviral drug developed by Merck (and sold as Stocrin and Sustiva), and till recently sold in Brazil for $1.56 a tablet (when generic versions of the same can be had from India for $0.45 per tablet). This news comes after the Thai government issued compulsory licences for three drugs, including Efavirenz, last November. (For more on that, please see http://spicyipindia.blogspot.com/2007/04/patents-and-public-interest-musings.htmland http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/thais-battle-for-affordable-hiv-drugs/2006/12/26/1166895299831.html ) Putting people's health before company profits Excerpt: "According to the Brazilian Health Ministry, the Efivarenz compulsory license will save the country $30 million a year and as much as $237 million by 2012, when Merck's patent expires. "In legal terms, Brazil is not breaking Merck's patent but only suspending it. And a royalty of 1.5 per cent will be paid to the company for all generics sold in the country at the price of $0.45 or lower. "According to Oxfam, developed countries in North America, Europe and East Asia account for 80 per cent of global pharmaceutical sales. The whole of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, on the other hand, accounts for less than two per cent of global sales. Thus there is no reason why compulsory licensing by developing countries should have an adverse impact on the incentive of big pharmaceutical companies to invest in R&D. "While Merck maintains a country like Brazil can afford to pay more for its drug than countries which are poorer, Brasilia has taken the fight for lower prices one step further by pushing for a resolution at the recently concluded World Health Assembly in Geneva encouraging governments to address 'the linkage between the cost of research and development and the price of medication.'" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070601/1e740c57/attachment.html From priti.radhakrishnan at gmail.com Sat Jun 2 01:15:02 2007 From: priti.radhakrishnan at gmail.com (Priti Radhakrishnan) Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 15:45:02 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] Very urgent please help!! Message-ID: Hi everyone, Please read this and then DO something. Our friends lives depend on it. Vinay Chakravarthy and Sameer Bhatia, dear friends of ours, have been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. They are 28 and 31 years old and have been married to their wives for less than two years. We are fighting to ensure that enough people are in the bone marrow registry so that there is a match for transplants. We are convinced that we are separate by less than 0 degrees and can mobilize all Indians to help Vinay and Sameer! Check out www.helpvinay.org . If the urgency of all this hasn't hit you yet, consider this: today, a Caucasian seeking a match will average 15 hits in the registry. A South Asian, 1 or 0. it is that painful. and that urgent. PLEASE make phone calls to your sisters, brothers & peeps tonight. We don't have much time. (It is so easy! A short form, a swab to the cheek (saliva). And its free!) Then please GO to the nearest donor center or a drive already scheduled/organized, available at http://www.helpvinay.org/dp/index.php?q=taxonomy/term/2. As drives get organized in different cities (efforts are currently underway in boston, NYC, chicago), they will be posted to the site: www.helpvinay.org. Even if you are not in the US or if you are not Indian I urge you to get registered. Every bit helps and Vinay can receive his transplant from someone abroad without that person having to leave their own city! We're running out of time. We've got to find a match in the next few weeks. Imagine if this was your son, spouse, friend. What would you do? Save a life. Make the contribution of a little bit of your time. Vinay, Sameer and their families are counting on you. We've registered. Have you? Rameet, Priti & Madan -- Help save my friend's life - go to www.helpvinay.org and see what you can do. It only takes a minute. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070601/e8fe50f7/attachment.html From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Mon Jun 4 08:10:52 2007 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 08:10:52 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Satwant Reddy Committee report says no to data exclusivity Message-ID: <908adbd0706031940l5ca9ac8dna2634d68a6e614ac@mail.gmail.com> URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/06/04/stories/2007060401361300.htm National An important win for domestic pharma industry Sarah Hiddleston ``Committee concludes that there is no need to change laws that govern drug registration'' # Need for transparent legal mechanisms # Additions should be made to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act Chennai: In an important win for the domestic pharmaceutical industry, a government committee has concluded that there is no need to change the laws that govern drug registration in the country. It has recommended against allowing pharmaceutical companies exclusive rights to clinical trial and other test data they submit when registering a new drug for sale in the country. Instead, it proposed that data be treated as a trade secret under common law. However, it suggested that this might be reviewed after an unspecified period of debate. The Satwant Reddy Committee, an inter-departmental group, was constituted in February 2004 to review the protection of undisclosed information in the light of intellectual property rights set down by the World Trade Organisation. It submitted its report to the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers on May 31 — the day its chairman, Satwant Reddy, stepped down from office. It noted that the country was entitled to determine the appropriate method of implementing WTO intellectual property rights recommendations but pointed out that there was a need for transparent legal mechanisms to protect undisclosed test data. As such, it recommended separate provisions for three different sectors. So while it advocated that test data for pharmaceutical drugs be protected as a trade secret under common law, it has recommended giving three years of exclusive rights to test data for companies registering new agro chemicals and five years of exclusive rights to test data for companies registering new traditional medicines. This would effectively give a company that first registers a new product sole access to the market for the duration of the right. The domestic pharmaceutical industry will avoid the delays, costs, and the ethical black hole of retesting a generic drug. This is because the drugs regulator, which judges how safe and effective a drug is, will continue to be able to refer to the clinical trial data of an original drug to approve generic versions that are chemically the same (bio equivalent). Multinational pharmaceutical companies, backed by the US and the EU, had lobbied for a five-year data protection term to recoup investments in clinical trials and encourage innovation. They claimed that Indian practice constituted ``unfair commercial use'' and contravened the internationally agreed guidelines laid down by the World Trade Organisation on intellectual property. The domestic pharmaceutical industry and public interest groups had opposed this. They argued that it was a means for foreign owned pharma companies to avoid competition and make extra profits on drugs with expiring patents or drugs that were not patented because they lacked innovation. They maintained that WTO intellectual property rights, which award patents for innovation, were being deliberately confused with the separate process of registering drugs. In committee reasoned, that "there was enough flexibility in the [WTO] TRIPS [trade related aspects of intellectual property rights] Agreement for a country to determine the appropriate means of protecting test data.'' It cited paragraph 4 of the Doha declaration, which states that the WTO Agreement should be "interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO members' right to protect public health and... promote access to medicines." It also recommended that in order to ensure confidentiality of data, additions should be made to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940 to specify third party liability for unauthorized use and make data protection enforceable through courts. However, the committee kept the door open for higher standards of data protection for a pharmaceutical innovator in the future. It suggested a five-year data exclusivity model for discussion with 14 safeguards to prevent excessive monopolies and enable the government to override data protection in the case of a public health emergency. G.S. Sandhu, Joint Secretary, Department of Chemicals and Fertilizers, which authored the report, said that the future model for pharmaceuticals was not a recommendation but a base from which discussion should begin. He stressed the importance of as wide a debate as possible and said that critical upgrades were necessary in the infrastructure and technical skills of the drug regulator before higher standards of protection could be considered. (c) Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070604/8c7d16ea/attachment.html From a_prabhala at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 4 09:32:25 2007 From: a_prabhala at yahoo.co.uk (Achal Prabhala) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 09:32:25 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] The Hindu: An important win for domestic pharma industry Message-ID: <001301c7a65d$2af90280$0201a8c0@som.yale.edu> http://www.hindu.com/2007/06/04/stories/2007060401361300.htm Date:04/06/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/06/04/stories/2007060401361300.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------- National An important win for domestic pharma industry Sarah Hiddleston ``Committee concludes that there is no need to change laws that govern drug registration'' -------------------------------------------------------------------------- a.. Need for transparent legal mechanisms a.. Additions should be made to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chennai: In an important win for the domestic pharmaceutical industry, a government committee has concluded that there is no need to change the laws that govern drug registration in the country. It has recommended against allowing pharmaceutical companies exclusive rights to clinical trial and other test data they submit when registering a new drug for sale in the country. Instead, it proposed that data be treated as a trade secret under common law. However, it suggested that this might be reviewed after an unspecified period of debate. The Satwant Reddy Committee, an inter-departmental group, was constituted in February 2004 to review the protection of undisclosed information in the light of intellectual property rights set down by the World Trade Organisation. It submitted its report to the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers on May 31 — the day its chairman, Satwant Reddy, stepped down from office. It noted that the country was entitled to determine the appropriate method of implementing WTO intellectual property rights recommendations but pointed out that there was a need for transparent legal mechanisms to protect undisclosed test data. As such, it recommended separate provisions for three different sectors. So while it advocated that test data for pharmaceutical drugs be protected as a trade secret under common law, it has recommended giving three years of exclusive rights to test data for companies registering new agro chemicals and five years of exclusive rights to test data for companies registering new traditional medicines. This would effectively give a company that first registers a new product sole access to the market for the duration of the right. The domestic pharmaceutical industry will avoid the delays, costs, and the ethical black hole of retesting a generic drug. This is because the drugs regulator, which judges how safe and effective a drug is, will continue to be able to refer to the clinical trial data of an original drug to approve generic versions that are chemically the same (bio equivalent). Multinational pharmaceutical companies, backed by the US and the EU, had lobbied for a five-year data protection term to recoup investments in clinical trials and encourage innovation. They claimed that Indian practice constituted ``unfair commercial use'' and contravened the internationally agreed guidelines laid down by the World Trade Organisation on intellectual property. The domestic pharmaceutical industry and public interest groups had opposed this. They argued that it was a means for foreign owned pharma companies to avoid competition and make extra profits on drugs with expiring patents or drugs that were not patented because they lacked innovation. They maintained that WTO intellectual property rights, which award patents for innovation, were being deliberately confused with the separate process of registering drugs. In committee reasoned, that "there was enough flexibility in the [WTO] TRIPS [trade related aspects of intellectual property rights] Agreement for a country to determine the appropriate means of protecting test data.'' It cited paragraph 4 of the Doha declaration, which states that the WTO Agreement should be "interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO members' right to protect public health and... promote access to medicines." It also recommended that in order to ensure confidentiality of data, additions should be made to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940 to specify third party liability for unauthorized use and make data protection enforceable through courts. However, the committee kept the door open for higher standards of data protection for a pharmaceutical innovator in the future. It suggested a five-year data exclusivity model for discussion with 14 safeguards to prevent excessive monopolies and enable the government to override data protection in the case of a public health emergency. G.S. Sandhu, Joint Secretary, Department of Chemicals and Fertilizers, which authored the report, said that the future model for pharmaceuticals was not a recommendation but a base from which discussion should begin. He stressed the importance of as wide a debate as possible and said that critical upgrades were necessary in the infrastructure and technical skills of the drug regulator before higher standards of protection could be considered. © Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070604/a9b813ce/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/octet-stream Size: 3057 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070604/a9b813ce/attachment.obj From sananth99 at gmail.com Fri Jun 8 07:16:00 2007 From: sananth99 at gmail.com (Ananth) Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 07:16:00 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Patent on Indian Yoga Message-ID: <7024347B-5F00-4F75-B901-1B0265450047@gmail.com> U.S. Says It Hasn't Granted Patents on Indian Yoga Exercises By Ashok Bhattacharjee http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news? pid=20601091&sid=aKebk56fYLyc&refer=india June 7 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. said it hasn't granted patents on yoga exercises, denying reports in the Indian media that key parts of the discipline native to the South Asian nation have been copyrighted. ``The U.S. Government has conducted a search of all patents issued and no U.S. patents on yoga positions have been identified,'' the U.S. embassy in Indian capital New Delhi said today in an e-mailed release. ``Recent media reports alleging that such patents exist are inaccurate.'' Local dailies, including the biggest-selling Times of India, have carried reports and comments in the past month that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had been issuing yoga-related copyrights, prompting the Indian government to assess the extent of U.S. patent protection to the discipline. The Hindu newspaper, citing an unnamed official, wrote on May 31 that the Indian mission in the U.S. had been asked to ascertain reports of 150 yoga-related copyrights, 134 patents on yoga accessories and 2,315 yoga trademarks granted by the U.S. The U.S., while acknowledging that it has granted patents on what the embassy called ``new and non-obvious devices that may be used in conjunction with yoga,'' said its government isn't aware of patents on yoga. ``Those patents would not include any yoga positions,'' the embassy said, referring to the intellectual property rights awarded by the patents office. Reports of yoga patents underscore India's concerns about subjecting traditional knowledge to curbs put in place by an overseas patenting authority. Indian lobby groups and political parties have opposed purported patents on the use of turmeric, a traditional ingredient in Indian health care and cuisine. Yoga is a system of exercises that promote control of the body and mind, according to the American Heritage Dictionary. The yoga industry worldwide is estimated to be $8 billion a year, according to an editorial in the Times of India. The discipline originates from the Vedas, or ancient Hindu scriptures, according to the Web site of the federal Indian department on alternative medicine. The discipline shed its monastic roots and is now taught in at least 12 institutions the federal government describes as ``major'' teaching institutes. From yuvaraj.a.r at gmail.com Sun Jun 10 11:05:33 2007 From: yuvaraj.a.r at gmail.com (Yuvaraj Athur Raghuvir) Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 11:05:33 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Fwd: [BIO-IPR] Scientist wants to patent man-made life form In-Reply-To: <18461334.1181450584049.JavaMail.SYSTEM@sun> References: <18461334.1181450584049.JavaMail.SYSTEM@sun> Message-ID: <10505d5c0706092235w640466c3i7344d889b217fd3b@mail.gmail.com> Food for thought.... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: bio-ipr at grain.org Date: Jun 10, 2007 10:13 AM Subject: [BIO-IPR] Scientist wants to patent man-made life form To: yuvaraj.a.r at gmail.com BIO-IPR docserver | http://www.grain.org/bio-ipr ________________________________________________________ TITLE: Scientist wants to patent life form - Man-made bacterium could create ethanol PUBLICATION: Vancouver Sun DATE: 9 June 2007 URL: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=86a5546d-7451-4b6b-b7bb-b99d4e8cf021&k=30266 ________________________________________________________ SCIENTIST WANTS TO PATENT LIFE FORM Man-made bacterium could create ethanol Kelly Patterson, CanWest News Service Saturday, June 09, 2007 A leading U.S. scientist has applied to patent the world's first man-made life form. Hailed as the biggest, most controversial genetics breakthrough since the cloning of Dolly the sheep, Dr. Craig Venter -- the scientist who led the private-sector race to map the human genome -- says his research team has figured out which genes provide the bare essentials for life. Now he wants the commercial rights to their use. Venter plans to cobble together synthetic versions of these genes to create the world's first artificial living being, a bacterium called mycoplasma laboratorium, which could then be programmed to convert sunlight into eco-friendly fuels such as hydrogen or ethanol. The plan represents a quantum leap in genetics, from reading the DNA of living organisms, to writing it from scratch. "This is a biological bombshell," warns Pat Mooney of the Ottawa-based Erosion, Technology and Concentration Group (ETC), a biotechnology watchdog that discovered the patent application this week. Once you've created an artificial bacterium, "it becomes a small step to do the same for a plant, an animal, and eventually even a human being," said Jim Thomas, also with ETC. "Society hasn't even discussed what the environmental and ethical implications are when humans create novel life-forms the planet has never seen before," Mooney said, let alone the ethics of allowing a company to gain sole control over the set of genes that constitute the basic building blocks of life, he added. Venter has filed patent applications in the U.S. and at the World Intellectual Property Organization, an international body that issues patents for more than 100 countries, including Canada. The ETC Group has appealed to the patent authorities to turn down the applications. Venter's research team would manufacture the essential genes, insert them into a "ghost" cell and add selected artificial genes. Venter says the main goal would be to produce hydrogen and ethanol which "could save an estimated $20 billion per year on fuel costs over the next 50 years (and) decrease greenhouse emissions by 1.7 billion tonnes per year," the firm says on its website. But Mooney said a programmable life form could "just as easily be used to make a bio-weapon." Mooney said Venter's organism is almost certain to get released into the environment with untold consequences. ________________________________________________________ GOING FURTHER (compiled by GRAIN) Roger Highfield, "Designer bug holds key to endless fuel", The Age, Australia, 10 June 2007. http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/designer-bug-holds-key-to-endless-fuel/2007/06/09/1181089398547.html Ian Sample, "Cash bonanza in prospect for genome pioneer", Guardian News Service, 8 June 2007. http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/008200706080322.htm Zonk, "Venter Institute claims patent on synthetic life", SlashDot, discussion started 7 June 2007. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/07/1925250 ETC Group, "Patenting Pandora's bug: goodbye, Dolly...hello, Synthia! J. Craig Venter Institute seeks monopoly patents on the world?s first-ever human-made life form", News release, Ottawa, 7 June 2007. http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=631 ________________________________________________________ ABOUT BIO-IPR -- BIO-IPR is an irregular listserver produced by GRAIN. Its purpose is to circulate news and information about recent developments in the field of intellectual property rights related to biodiversity and associated knowledge. BIO-IPR is a strictly non-commercial and educational service for nonprofit organisations and individuals active in the struggle against IPRs on life. The views expressed in each post are those of the indicated author(s). ARCHIVES -- The full archives are online at http://www.grain.org/bio-ipr. SUBSCRIPTIONS -- To subscribe or modify your subscription details, please go to http://www.grain.org/subscribe/bioipr.cfm and either join or login. (Those without web access can send a blank message to mailto: subscribe-bio-ipr at grain.org.) SUBMISSIONS -- To submit material for posting on BIO-IPR, or any questions about the list, please contact us at mailto:bio-ipr at grain.org. ABOUT US -- GRAIN is a small international NGO working to strengthen farmers' control over agricultural biodiversity and local knowledge, particularly in developing countries. For more information about GRAIN, please visit http://www.grain.org. ________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from BIO-IPR click here: http://www.grain.org/s/?u=25450 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070610/f4ab4cf4/attachment.html From chandita.mukherjee at gmail.com Sun Jun 10 15:19:08 2007 From: chandita.mukherjee at gmail.com (chanditamukherjee) Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 09:49:08 -0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] [vikalp] a good legal precedent for documentary film makers Message-ID: Dear Friends The courts have once again set a good precedent for documentary film makers! I am sending you a story which has a meaning for all watchers of the media scene. It would be of special interest for those who aspire to get their work produced by a TV channel. The interesting thing is that despite this being a landmark judgement, except for DNA (Daily News and Analysis, Mumbai) all the other newspapers have refused to take the story. The magnates of the established media seem to have a "You-don't-touch-me and I-don't-touch-you" protocol in place. It appears that all the newspapers and news magazines either have channels of their own or have "strategic partnership" agreements with particular channels which stop them from exposing one another. Talk about cross-media monopoly and censorship! We could help to rip this gag by spreading this news. On Monday, June 11th the matter goes into appeal, so the story is not over yet. Chandita Mukherjee ================================================== Urmi Juvekar Vs CNN IBN On 9th November 2005, documentary film maker and scriptwriter Urmi Juvekar registered a concept for a reality television show called `Work in Progress' with the Film Writers' Association. The concept was simple: three citizens or citizen's groups at three locations across the country take up a troublesome civic issue and try to solve it on a campaign footing within a month. Reporters and cameras from a channel follow the story as it unfolds. Every night on the news bulletins of the channel a 3-minute capsule keeps us updated on the developments at each location. At the end of the first three weeks we see a 60 minute episode of the week's developments with a forward look to the upcoming week. A concluding 60 minute finale comes at end of the month. This was a project that would draw public attention to all the good work of activists under the Right to Information Act. A tremendous idea for civic education and involvement, the immediate daily TV coverage during the course of the campaign would have had implications for the progress of the cases followed. Such an idea for a reality-based programme could only have been realised with the resources which a TV news channel, with its network of people all over the country, can provide. Here is how the story unfolded: 10th March 2006, Urmi wrote to Rasika Tyagi from CNN IBN after a telephonic conversation and e-mailed her the concept note. 21st March 2006, Rasika Tyagi wrote back saying that she found the concept note interesting and asked for a meeting. 3rd April 2006, a meeting is held in the CNN IBN office in Delhi. A detailed concept note with treatment, sample characters and episode development is presented along with the budget and production plan. The budget is deemed to be high and CNN IBN offers some in-house facilities to bring costs down. They also suggest an option of doing it in two languages so that it can be broadcast on IBN 7 simultaneously. Several more discussions are held in subsequent months and finally Urmi is informed that the project will be considered after World Cup 2007. 14th May 2007, CNN IBN puts on a new show `Summer Showdown'. It is a daily 3-minute capsule, but has no the-end-of-the-week review. Their website ibnlive.com advertises it as a reality show showcasing five families across five metros solving their civic problems in 4 weeks. 19th May 2007, Urmi is informed by friends that a show that looks very similar to her `Work in Progress' is on air and she manages to see the show. 21st May 2007, Urmi rushes to the Bombay High Court. The case is scheduled for 23rd May in front of the vacation judge. She claims infringement of copyright and breach of confidentiality. 23rd May 2007, counsel for CNN IBN makes a statement in court that `Summer Showdown' is not a reality show but a live news clipping. The court asks them to give an affidavit stating the same. 24th May 2007, CNN IBN asks the judge to change the order. Now they admit that Summer Showdown' is a reality-based programme but insist that it is not based on `Work in Progress'. They claim that their previous day's statement in the court was misunderstood. Their appeal is rejected and they are asked to file an affidavit on the 31st stating that `Summer Showdown' is a live news clipping and not based on Urmi's project. 29th May 2007, CNN IBN files an affidavit only stating that they have not copied Urmi's idea. They also state that ideas are not protected by copyright. The affidavit is filled with contradictory statements. `Summer Showdown' now becomes a race between various civic authorities in completing summer-related problems in four weeks. Traffic, monsoon and garbage are portrayed as summer problems. In a play of semantics, the civic problems dealt in `Summer Showdown' become macro level while the problems suggested for `Work in Progress' problems are stated to be local and at micro level. At the same time the CNN IBN website continues to feature `Summer Showdown' as a tale of five families across the country trying to solve civic problems. Urmi's sample episodes demonstrating the concept are dismissed as fiction scripts. According to CNN IBN, her 25 page project proposal is a mere idea. Well known anchor Rajdeep Sardesai denies knowledge of the matter while his e-mail replies to Urmi state otherwise. 4th June 2007, Urmi sends a rejoinder, exposing the contradictions in the affidavit, and pointing to the fact that although in the court `Summer Showdown' was described as a live news clipping, it has now become a reality show created in-house during March and April 2007. 6th May 2007, the case comes for hearing in Bombay High Court. The counsel for CNN IBN pleads for more time since he has not been able to prepare adequately. Urmi's counsel opposes the move as only 4 days remain for the first round of 4 weeks of the telecast. The judge agrees to listen to the case on merit. The case is heard for four hours. Urmi's counsel puts all facts regarding meetings and submissions on the table and deals with similarities at great length. The counsel for CNN IBN sticks to the single point that ideas are not protected by copyright and Urmi's idea is just a rehash of `Rajni', the popular programme of the 1980s, and several present day citizen journalism programmes on TV. Urmi's counsel refutes these arguments, concluding his statement by saying that if she does not get a stay order in this matter, then no creative person who approaches a TV channel in order to realise his or her idea will feel safe and protected by the law. The judgment is scheduled for the next day. 7th June 2007, the judge dictates the judgment in his chamber for three hours. He comes to the court and grants the stay order to Urmi Juvekar on the basis of copyright claims and breach of confidentiality. CNN IBN demands a relief of four days. The judge reminds them that their programme cycle gets over on Saturday 9th June in any case, so relief till Monday 11th June seems pointless. 8th June 2007, CNN IBN rushes into appeal but the division bench asks for a copy of the judgment. That still being in preparation, they have to stop there. On Monday 11th June, CNN IBN is expected make an appeal to the bench and we will see how the story spins on. In the meanwhile, considering the landmark nature of the judgement and the significance of it for independent film makers, script-writers and the Film Writers' Association, there is not much news of it about. The simple reason: media refuses to touch the story. In that lies another story, something of a warning to those who have to survive in India Inc. __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Files | Photos | Links | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Visit Your Group SPONSORED LINKS Freedom of expression Independent movie Independent movie on dvd Independent Lip-Sync? Win a guitar & CD! See Good Charotte Contest on Bix! Yahoo! Movies Staying in tonight? Check out new DVDs and read reviews. Yahoo! TV Staying in tonight? Check Daily Picks & see what to watch. . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070610/b806f0ab/attachment.html From hbs.law at gmail.com Wed Jun 13 12:18:11 2007 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:18:11 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] A Patent Lie - Tim Bernes Lee Message-ID: <8b60429e0706122348s5ab20561s1714a04cf73fa0fd@mail.gmail.com> Not sure if this was sent earlier. Excuse me if it is a repeat. Tim doesn't like software patents, and his views are important. - Hasit June 9, 2007 Op-Ed Contributor A Patent Lie By TIMOTHY B. LEE St. Louis WHAT a difference 16 years makes. Last month, the technology world was abuzz over an interview in Fortune magazine in which Bradford Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, accused users and developers of various free software products of patent infringement and demanded royalties. Indeed, in recent years, Mr. Smith has argued that patents are essential to technological breakthroughs in software. Microsoft sang a very different tune in 1991. In a memo to his senior executives, Bill Gates wrote, "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today." Mr. Gates worried that "some large company will patent some obvious thing" and use the patent to "take as much of our profits as they want." Mr. Gates wrote his 1991 memo shortly after the courts began allowing patents on software in the 1980s. At the time Microsoft was a growing company challenging entrenched incumbents like I.B.M. and Novell. It had only eight patents to its name. Recognizing the threat to his company, Mr. Gates initiated an aggressive patenting program. Today Microsoft holds more than 6,000 patents. It's not surprising that Microsoft — now an entrenched incumbent — has had a change of heart. But Mr. Gates was right in 1991: patents are bad for the software industry. Nothing illustrates that better than the conflict between Verizon and Vonage. Vonage developed one of the first Internet telephone services and has attracted more than two million customers. But last year, Verizon — one of Vonage's biggest competitors — sued for patent infringement and won a verdict in its favor in March. The Gates memo predicted that a large company would "patent some obvious thing," and that's exactly what Verizon has done. Two of its patents cover the concept of translating phone numbers into Internet addresses. It is virtually impossible to create a consumer-friendly Internet telephone product without doing that. So if Verizon prevails on appeal, it will probably be able to drive Vonage out of business. Consumers will suffer from fewer choices and higher prices, and future competitors will be reluctant to enter markets dominated by patents. But don't software companies need patent protection? In fact, companies, especially those that are focused on innovation, don't: software is already protected by copyright law, and there's no reason any industry needs both types of protection. The rules of copyright are simpler and protection is available to everyone at very low cost. In contrast, the patent system is cumbersome and expensive. Applying for patents and conducting patent searches can cost tens of thousands of dollars. That is not a huge burden for large companies like Microsoft, but it can be a serious burden for the small start-up firms that produce some of the most important software innovations. Yet, as the Vonage case demonstrates, participating in the patent system is not optional. Independent invention is not a defense to patent infringement, and large software companies now hold so many patents that it is almost impossible to create useful software without infringing some of them. Therefore, the only means of self-defense is the one Mr. Gates identified 16 years ago: stockpile patents to use as bargaining chips in litigation. Vonage didn't do that, and it's now paying a very high price. Only patent lawyers benefit from this kind of arms race. And Microsoft's own history contradicts Mr. Smith's claim that patents are essential for technological breakthroughs: Microsoft produced lots of innovative software before it received its first software patent in 1988. As more and more lawsuits rock the industry, we should ask if software patents are stifling innovation. Bill Gates certainly thought so in 1991, even if he won't admit it today. Timothy B. Lee is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070613/b88803b0/attachment.html From hbs.law at gmail.com Wed Jun 13 16:03:54 2007 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:03:54 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Fwd: A Patent Lie - Tim Bernes Lee In-Reply-To: <8b60429e0706122348s5ab20561s1714a04cf73fa0fd@mail.gmail.com> References: <8b60429e0706122348s5ab20561s1714a04cf73fa0fd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8b60429e0706130333x45a47d40k19b863a7066e4632@mail.gmail.com> My regrets for the mistake. This article is from Timothy B. Lee and not Tim-Berners Lee. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Hasit seth Date: Jun 13, 2007 12:18 PM Subject: A Patent Lie - Tim Bernes Lee To: commons-law at sarai.net Not sure if this was sent earlier. Excuse me if it is a repeat. Tim doesn't like software patents, and his views are important. - Hasit June 9, 2007 Op-Ed Contributor A Patent Lie By TIMOTHY B. LEE St. Louis WHAT a difference 16 years makes. Last month, the technology world was abuzz over an interview in Fortune magazine in which Bradford Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, accused users and developers of various free software products of patent infringement and demanded royalties. Indeed, in recent years, Mr. Smith has argued that patents are essential to technological breakthroughs in software. Microsoft sang a very different tune in 1991. In a memo to his senior executives, Bill Gates wrote, "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today." Mr. Gates worried that "some large company will patent some obvious thing" and use the patent to "take as much of our profits as they want." Mr. Gates wrote his 1991 memo shortly after the courts began allowing patents on software in the 1980s. At the time Microsoft was a growing company challenging entrenched incumbents like I.B.M. and Novell. It had only eight patents to its name. Recognizing the threat to his company, Mr. Gates initiated an aggressive patenting program. Today Microsoft holds more than 6,000 patents. It's not surprising that Microsoft — now an entrenched incumbent — has had a change of heart. But Mr. Gates was right in 1991: patents are bad for the software industry. Nothing illustrates that better than the conflict between Verizon and Vonage. Vonage developed one of the first Internet telephone services and has attracted more than two million customers. But last year, Verizon — one of Vonage's biggest competitors — sued for patent infringement and won a verdict in its favor in March. The Gates memo predicted that a large company would "patent some obvious thing," and that's exactly what Verizon has done. Two of its patents cover the concept of translating phone numbers into Internet addresses. It is virtually impossible to create a consumer-friendly Internet telephone product without doing that. So if Verizon prevails on appeal, it will probably be able to drive Vonage out of business. Consumers will suffer from fewer choices and higher prices, and future competitors will be reluctant to enter markets dominated by patents. But don't software companies need patent protection? In fact, companies, especially those that are focused on innovation, don't: software is already protected by copyright law, and there's no reason any industry needs both types of protection. The rules of copyright are simpler and protection is available to everyone at very low cost. In contrast, the patent system is cumbersome and expensive. Applying for patents and conducting patent searches can cost tens of thousands of dollars. That is not a huge burden for large companies like Microsoft, but it can be a serious burden for the small start-up firms that produce some of the most important software innovations. Yet, as the Vonage case demonstrates, participating in the patent system is not optional. Independent invention is not a defense to patent infringement, and large software companies now hold so many patents that it is almost impossible to create useful software without infringing some of them. Therefore, the only means of self-defense is the one Mr. Gates identified 16 years ago: stockpile patents to use as bargaining chips in litigation. Vonage didn't do that, and it's now paying a very high price. Only patent lawyers benefit from this kind of arms race. And Microsoft's own history contradicts Mr. Smith's claim that patents are essential for technological breakthroughs: Microsoft produced lots of innovative software before it received its first software patent in 1988. As more and more lawsuits rock the industry, we should ask if software patents are stifling innovation. Bill Gates certainly thought so in 1991, even if he won't admit it today. Timothy B. Lee is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070613/4f670fb1/attachment.html From the.solipsist at gmail.com Wed Jun 20 02:44:05 2007 From: the.solipsist at gmail.com (Pranesh Prakash) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 02:44:05 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Jefferson on IPR Message-ID: <4785f1e20706191414j33043c37qb533613dfb9ff067@mail.gmail.com> Dear All, This is a site that is, in its own words, A Primer in Modern Intellectual Property Law . It is a very brief primer, and does a good job of laying out the foundations of IP, though it only on IP in the United States. Very importantly, it contains bits of a letter penned by Thomas Jefferson (who, if you didn't know already, while he was Secretary of State in 1790, was on the first Patent Board, and was "considered the first administrator of the American patent system and the first patent examiner"; and was also the one creditedas being the author of the Patent Act of 1793.) These excerpts make for very interesting reading. Some bits are reminiscent of Justice Louis Brandeis' "Free as the air to common use." It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors > have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for > their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot > question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature > at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right > to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the > subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an > acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether > fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property > for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the > occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of > social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be > curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, > could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If > nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive > property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an > individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but > the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every > one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar > character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other > possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives > instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at > mine, receives light without darkening me. [emphasis added] That ideas > should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and > mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have > been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, > like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any > point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical > being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then > cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. ... Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an > encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may > or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, > without claim or complaint from any body. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far > as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on > earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use > of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, > and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations > have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage > to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies > of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices. > > Considering the exclusive right to invention as given not of natural > right, but for the benefit of society, I know well the difficulty of drawing > a line between the things which are worth to the public the embarrassment of > an exclusive patent, and those which are not. > Cheers, Pranesh -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070620/41a92b2a/attachment.html From hbs.law at gmail.com Thu Jun 21 01:36:27 2007 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:36:27 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Who Will Pay for This? Message-ID: <8b60429e0706201306k68896846k4761df5e8886f44@mail.gmail.com> Who will pay for this? Cost of a successful drug includes cost of many unsuccessful ones. Take note... NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Pfizer Inc. said on Wednesday it has discontinued trials of an experimental lung cancer drug licensed from Coley Pharmaceutical Group after an independent review committee deemed it ineffective, spurring a 60 percent decline in Coley shares. "The [committee] concluded that the risk-benefit profile did not justify continuation of the trials," Pfizer(down $0.38 to $25.83, Charts, Fortune 500) said in a press release. The New York-based drugmaker, which is trying to become a major force in oncology, said the canceled trials include two late-stage and two mid-stage studies of the medicine, which it licensed from Coley(down $4.92 to $3.57, Charts) in 2005. The compound, called PF-3512676, was no more effective in combination with chemotherapy than chemotherapy alone, according to an analysis by the independent data safety monitoring committee. It is Coley's only drug in late-stage trials, making it the company's most important drug. Coley shares were down $5.06 to $3.43 in heavy afternoon trading on the Nasdaq. Pfizer was down 44 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $25.77 on the New York Stock Exchange, amid a 0.9 percent decline for the American Stock Exchange Pharmaceutical Index of large U.S. and European drugmakers. Cowen and Co. had predicted the medicine, if approved, would generate annual sales of $100 million by 2012. [image: Top of page] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070621/2a90a92f/attachment.html From lawrence at altlawforum.org Thu Jun 21 14:59:56 2007 From: lawrence at altlawforum.org (Lawrence Liang) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:59:56 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Who Will Pay for This? In-Reply-To: <8b60429e0706201306k68896846k4761df5e8886f44@mail.gmail.com> References: <8b60429e0706201306k68896846k4761df5e8886f44@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <467A4514.4030003@altlawforum.org> maybe you should read http://www.amazon.com/800-Million-Pill-Truth-behind/dp/0520239458 for an answer Lawrence Hasit seth wrote: > Who will pay for this? Cost of a successful drug includes cost of many > unsuccessful ones. Take note... > > NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Pfizer Inc. said on Wednesday it has > discontinued trials of an experimental lung cancer drug licensed from > Coley Pharmaceutical Group after an independent review committee > deemed it ineffective, spurring a 60 percent decline in Coley shares. > > "The [committee] concluded that the risk-benefit profile did not > justify continuation of the trials," Pfizer > > (down $0.38 to $25.83, Charts > , > Fortune 500 > ) > said in a press release. > > The New York-based drugmaker, which is trying to become a major force > in oncology, said the canceled trials include two late-stage and two > mid-stage studies of the medicine, which it licensed from Coley > > (down $4.92 to $3.57, Charts > ) > in 2005. > > The compound, called PF-3512676, was no more effective in combination > with chemotherapy than chemotherapy alone, according to an analysis by > the independent data safety monitoring committee. > > It is Coley's only drug in late-stage trials, making it the company's > most important drug. > > Coley shares were down $5.06 to $3.43 in heavy afternoon trading on > the Nasdaq. Pfizer was down 44 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $25.77 on the > New York Stock Exchange, amid a 0.9 percent decline for the American > Stock Exchange Pharmaceutical Index of large U.S. and European drugmakers. > > Cowen and Co. had predicted the medicine, if approved, would generate > annual sales of $100 million by 2012. Top of page > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > commons-law mailing list > commons-law at sarai.net > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law > From upendrabaxi at yahoo.com Sat Jun 16 16:01:18 2007 From: upendrabaxi at yahoo.com (TrueSwitch on behalf of baxiupendra@aol.com) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 06:31:18 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] baxiupendra@aol.com has a new Yahoo! Mail address Message-ID: <10716711.1181989878301.JavaMail.vmail@service2.colo.trueswitch.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070616/b79af75d/attachment.html From jeebesh at sarai.net Sat Jun 23 09:56:37 2007 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 09:56:37 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Migrating our server Message-ID: <5CC8DFA0-DACE-4238-9BBD-65CD17693E2C@sarai.net> Dear List-subscriber, We will be migrating our server to a better server and this will mean a mild disruption on the 23rd. (for four hours between 4 pm to 8pm IST) Sorry for the inconvenience. warmly list-admins From patrice at xs4all.nl Sun Jun 24 20:24:37 2007 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 16:54:37 +0200 Subject: [Commons-Law] [Reader-list] dutch-indian cybercrime In-Reply-To: <13b92085c15bf76cf6905f7416a72ae1@desk.nl> References: <13b92085c15bf76cf6905f7416a72ae1@desk.nl> Message-ID: <20070624145437.GH62902@xs4all.nl> As an aside to Geert's posting it might be interesting to know that two Dutch providers, who are hosting the websites of undermentionned NGOs have been dragged to court in Bangalore as well: XS4ALL (http://www.xs4all.nl) and Antenna (http://www.antenna.nl). Both maintain that (i) as providers they are merely carriers and not content providers (the 'post office argument') and (ii) it is up to the Indian aggrieved party to prove that the allegedly infringing sites are prosecutable under _Dutch_ law, or under international law and/or conventions. The former is surely not the case, and as India is not signatory of the cybercrime convention, the latter is not even arguable. On Sun, Jun 24, 2007 at 08:52:35AM +0200, geert lovink wrote: > Dutch NGOs summoned by Bangalore court > > INDIA-SAARC > 23 June 2007 - Issue : 735 > > Two non-governmental organisations (NGOs) based in the Netherlands were > asked to appear before a court in Bangalore on June 25. They are > accused of ?cybercrime, acts of racist and xenophobic nature and > criminal defamation,? according to the NGO?s pres release. The two > organizations are the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) and the India > Committee of the Netherlands (ICN). > > The former is an international network of trade unions and NGOs, the > latter an independent NGO, based on solidarity with deprived groups in > Indian society. They have been raising public ?awareness of serious > labour rights? violations? at jeans suppliers Fibres and Fabrics > International and its wholly-owned subsidiary Jeans Knit Pvt. Ltd > (FFI/JKPL). > > This is the first time that a factory has filed suit against the CCC > and ICN for publishing information on working conditions in the garment > industry on their respective websites, their press release points out. > > Their information was based on interviews with workers conducted in > 2005 and 2006, and backed up by a fact-finding mission of seven human > rights? and women?s rights organisations. > > Since July 2006 the Garment and Textile Workers? Union (GATWU), the New > Trade Union Initiative (NTUI), the Civil Initiative for Peace and > Development (CIVIDEP), the Women Garment Workers? Front Munnade and the > CCC Task Force Tamil Naidu have been prohibited from distributing > information on working conditions at FFI/JKPL inside and outside India. > > ?Suing all human rights organizations that report about working > conditions in the garment industry in Bangalore will not solve > anything,? according to Esther de Haan, of the CCC International > Secretariat and one of the accused. She called on FFI/JKPL to start a > dialogue with GATWU and the other organisations, according to the > CCC/INC press release. > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Tue Jun 26 13:21:42 2007 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 13:21:42 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Kerala Gazette goes online Message-ID: <908adbd0706260051i280c9c96q82e84a07d7c60992@mail.gmail.com> Date:26/06/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/06/26/stories/2007062652730200.htm Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Gazette has gone online. All notifications and government orders published in the gazette can now be viewed on the portal www.egazette.kerala.gov.in. With this, Kerala has become the first State to offer the facility. Notifications in Malayalam and English can be viewed on the site. The online version will also have an archive of five back issues. Chief Minister V.S.Achuthanandan inaugurated the online version of the gazette here. Director of Printing M. Archangelo said the online version of the gazette was conceived and executed with the objective of making it easier for the public to access information on notifications and government orders. "A publication in the gazette is mandatory for various official purposes like a change of name or religion, correction of caste or issue of heirship certificate. As many as 2600 copies of the printed gazette are published every Tuesday. A copy is priced at Rs.64. The online version of the gazette will be available on the site on Tuesday itself. The public can download the information from the portal. (c) Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu From hbs.law at gmail.com Tue Jun 26 16:27:12 2007 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:27:12 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] The Silly Software is Not Hardware Debate... Message-ID: <8b60429e0706260357u49d41c4bkcdbd67ab92f90ad4@mail.gmail.com> Will keep this short... Several times during software patent debate, anti-software patent actvists (APA) always bring up the idea that software is not "hard" enough to be worthy of patenting with several arguments like it is mathematics, that it is literature (this one took the cake), it is only mental steps, it is found in nature (whistle) and has always existed around, and so on. I just wish to point out one Darwinian shift that is happening now: http://www.apple.com/iphone/ . Apple's iPhone has buried the concept of a phone having "buttons" that you can push, meaning physical buttons. The buttons now exist as software, which the iPhone, meaning OSX running on iPhone, displays as icons on its touch sensitive screens. Users interact by touching the buttons and not pushing them since buttons are not physical anymore. Will it be correct now to say that these software buttons could not be patented (assuming they fulfil patentability criterias) because they are "software", but they would be if they were real plastic or metal buttons? In the same way, software that can solve equations cannot be wholesale ruled out as unpatentable, because alternative to that software would be to create a mechanical or electro-mechanical machine to do the same just Charles Babbage did that with his Difference Engine and Analytical Engine ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage). Do you see how deeply flawed the APA arguments are about nature of software? I guess software and software patenting has followed Darwinian evolution, but some people refuse to evolve their thinking. Darwin had something to say about not evolving... -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/defanged-37 Size: 2047 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070626/de19c83a/attachment.bin From anarrain at yahoo.co.in Tue Jun 26 18:15:39 2007 From: anarrain at yahoo.co.in (Arvind Narrain) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 13:45:39 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Re Democracy, Political Dissent, and Repressive Laws: A Seminar In-Reply-To: <8b60429e0706260357u49d41c4bkcdbd67ab92f90ad4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <591044.90588.qm@web7615.mail.in.yahoo.com> Indian democracy ever since the coming into force of the Indian Constitution has had two faces. One face which has been repeatedly celebrated and eulogized is as the 'largest democratic experiment in history'. The other face which remains hidden is the existence of several repressive laws and state administrative practices which raise the question as to whether democracy has established deep roots in India. The recent arrest of Dr. Binayak Sen of the PUCL-Chattisgarh has brought to the fore the important question as to what does democracy mean when it is practiced under the ever present shadow of state repression. Dr. Binayak Sen is a medical doctor who has been actively involved in reaching health care to the poorest people as well as monitoring the health and nutrition status of the people of Chhattisgarh. He has also been a strong advocate of human rights and has often exposed the Chattisgarh state's serious violation of human rights. Dr Sen's vigorous opposition to the anti-constitutional acts of murder by the state government of Chattisgarh has exposed him to the full fury of state retribution with the government arresting him on charges of conspiracy to wage war against the state and sedition, among others. People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Karnataka, is organizing this seminar on 1 July 2007 which will focus on repressive laws and provisions and administrative state practices like the 'encounter killing'. This seminar is being held in the wake of the observance of the emergency all over the country on 26 June. We hope to raise serious questions about the nature of Indian democracy. It is only by repealing these laws and by ensuring that the state desists from acts of murder that the hollowed out shell of Indian democracy can live up to its more substantive Constitutional promise. Seminar Programme Date: 1 July 2007 (Sunday) Time: 10.30a.m.-5.30 p.m Venue: YMCA, Bangalore Inaugural Lecture: Prof. G. Ramakrishna Session 1: The Arrest of Dr. Binayak Sen Speakers: 1.Dr. Ravi Narayan, Advisor, People’s Health Movement 2. Dr.Bela Bhatia, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 3. Dr. V. Lakshminarayana, PUCL-Karnataka Session 2. Repressive Laws and Democracy: Speakers: 1. Shri Shivsundar, Journalist, “Lankesh Varapatrike” 2. Dr. Seetharam Kakarala, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore Lunch Session 3. Encounter Killings as State Policy Speakers: 1. Dr. V.S. Sreedhara PDF Session 4. Defending Human Rights Defenders Speakers: 1. Dr. K. Balagopal, HRF, Andhra Pradesh 2. Shri K. Vithal Hegde , Kudremukh National Park Virodha Horata Sanghatane You are cordially invited Hasan Mansur President, PUCL-Karnataka, Bangalore Did you know? You can CHAT without downloading messenger. Go to http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php From sananth99 at gmail.com Sun Jun 24 09:06:52 2007 From: sananth99 at gmail.com (Ananth) Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 09:06:52 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Profits in Biowarfare Research Message-ID: June 22, 2007 The Big Profits in Biowarfare Research Corporate America's Deadliest Secret http://www.counterpunch.org/ross06222007.html By SHERWOOD ROSS A number of major pharmaceutical corporations and biotech firms are concealing the nature of the biological warfare research work they are doing for the U.S. government. Since their funding comes from the National Institutes of Health, the recipients are obligated under NIH guidelines to make their activities public. Not disclosing their ops raises the suspicion they may be engaged in forbidden kinds of germ warfare research. According to the Sunshine Project, a nonprofit arms control watchdog operating out of Austin, Texas, among corporations holding back information about their activities are: Abbott Laboratories, BASF Plant Science, Bristol-Myers Squibb, DuPont Central Research and Development, Eli Lilly Corp., Embrex, GlaxoSmithKline, Hoffman-LaRoche, Merck & Co., Monsanto, Pfizer Inc., Schering-Plough Research Institute, and Syngenta Corp. of Switzerland. In case you didn't know it, the White House since 9/11 has called for spending $44-billion on biological warfare research, a sum unprecedented in world history, and an obliging Congress has authorized it. Thus, some of the deadliest pathogens known to humankind are being rekindled in hundreds of labs in pharmaceutical houses, university biology departments, and on military bases. An international convention the U.S. signed forbids it to stockpile, manufacture or use biological weapons. But if the U.S. won't say what's going down in those laboratories other countries are going to assume the worst and a biowarfare arms race will be on, if it isn't already. Sunshine says failure to disclose operations also puts corporate employees involved in this work at risk. Only 8,500, or 16%, of the 52,000 workers employed at the top 20 U.S. biotech firms work at an NIH guidelines-compliant company, Sunshine says. Francis Boyle, an international law authority at the University of Illinois, Champaign, says pursuant to national strategy directives adopted by Bush in 2002, the Pentagon "is now gearing up to fight and win' biological warfare without prior public knowledge and review." Boyle said the Pentagon's Chemical and Biological Defense Program was revised in 2003 to endorse "first-use" strike in war. Boyle said the program includes Red Teaming, which he described as "plotting, planning, and scheming how to use biowarfare." Besides the big pharmaceutical houses, the biowarfare buildup is getting an enthusiastic response from academia, which sees new funds flowing from Washington's horn of plenty. "American universities have a long history of willingly permitting their research agenda, researchers, institutes and laboratories to be co-opted, corrupted, and perverted by the Pentagon and the CIA," Boyle says. What's more, the Bush administration is pouring billions in biowarfare research while some very real killers, such as influenza, are not being cured. In 2006, the NIH got $120 million to combat influenza, which kills about 36,000 Americans annually but it got $1.76 billion for biodefense, much of it spent to research anthrax. How many people has anthrax killed lately? Well, let's see, there were those five people killed in the mysterious attacks on Congress of October, 2001 --- attacks that suspiciously emanated from a government laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md. One would think the FBI might apprehend the perpetrator whose attack shut down the Congress of the United States but nearly six years have gone by and it hasn't caught anybody. Seem a bit odd to you? Some folks suspect the anthrax attack was an inside job to panic the country into a huge biowarfare buildup to "protect" America from "terrorists." Milton Leitenberg, of the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, though, says the risk of terrorists and nonstate actors using biological agents against the U.S. "has been systematically and deliberately exaggerated" by administration scare-mongering. And molecular biologist Jonathan King of Massachusetts Institute of Technology says, "the Bush administration launched a major program which threatens to put the health of our people at far greater risk than the hazard to which they claimed to have been responding." King added President Bush's policies "do not increase the security of the American people" but "bring new risk to our population of the most appalling kind." In the absence of any credible foreign threat, Sunshine's Hammond said, "Our biowarfare research is defending ourselves from ourselves. It's a dog chasing its tail." Sadly, it looks more and more every day like a mad dog. Sherwood Ross has worked as a reporter for major dailies and wire services. Reach him at sherwoodr1 at yahoo.com From prabhuram at gmail.com Thu Jun 28 16:29:23 2007 From: prabhuram at gmail.com (Prabhu Ram) Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:29:23 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Chef Sues Over Intellectual Property (the Menu) Message-ID: <68752c9f0706280359i1120d808v108629556e8bf72c@mail.gmail.com> >From the NYTimes Chef Sues Over Intellectual Property (the Menu) By PETE WELLS Sometimes, Rebecca Charles wishes she were a little less influential. She was, she asserts, the first chef in New York who took lobster rolls, fried clams and other sturdy utility players of New England seafood cookery and lifted them to all-star status on her menu. Since opening Pearl Oyster Bar in the West Village 10 years ago, she has ruefully watched the arrival of a string of restaurants she considers "knockoffs" of her own. Yesterday she filed suit in Federal District Court in Manhattan against the latest and, she said, the most brazen of her imitators: Ed McFarland, chef and co-owner of Ed's Lobster Bar in SoHo and her sous-chef at Pearl for six years. The suit, which seeks unspecified financial damages from Mr. McFarland and the restaurant itself, charges that Ed's Lobster Bar copies "each and every element" of Pearl Oyster Bar, including the white marble bar, the gray paint on the wainscoting, the chairs and bar stools with their wheat-straw backs, the packets of oyster crackers placed at each table setting and the dressing on the Caesar salad. Mr. McFarland would not comment on the complaint, saying that he had not seen it yet. But he said that Ed's Lobster Bar, which opened in March, was no imitator. "I would say it's a similar restaurant," he said, "I would not say it's a copy." Lawyers for Ms. Charles, 53, said that what Ed's Lobster Bar had done amounted to theft of her intellectual property — the kind of claim more often seen in publishing and entertainment, or among giant restaurant chains protecting their brand. In recent years, a handful of chefs and restaurateurs have invoked intellectual property concepts, including trademarks, patents and trade dress — the distinctive look and feel of a business — to defend their restaurants, their techniques and even their recipes, but most have stopped short of a courtroom. The Pearl Oyster Bar suit may be the most aggressive use of those concepts by the owner of a small restaurant. Some legal experts believe the number of cases will grow as chefs begin to think more like chief executives. Charles Valauskas, a lawyer in Chicago who represents a number of restaurants and chefs in intellectual property matters, called their discovery of intellectual property law "long overdue" and attributed it to greater competition as well as the high cost of opening a restaurant. "Now the stakes are so high," he said. "The average restaurant can be millions of dollars. If I were an investor I'd want to do something to make sure my investment is protected." Ms. Charles's investment was modest. She built Pearl Oyster Bar for about $120,000 — a cost that in today's market qualifies as an early-bird special. She acknowledged that Pearl was itself inspired by another narrow, unassuming place, Swan Oyster Depot in San Francisco. But she said she had spent many months making hundreds of small decisions about her restaurant's look, feel and menu. Those decisions made the place her own, she said, and were colored by her history. The paint scheme, for instance, was meant to evoke the seascape along the Maine coast where she spent summers as a girl. "My restaurant is a personal reflection of me, my experience, my family," she said. "That restaurant is me." Mr. McFarland, she said, had unfairly profited from all the thought she had put into building Pearl. "To have that handed to you, so you don't have to make those decisions — it's unfair," she said. But the detail that seems to gnaw at her most is a $7 appetizer on Mr. McFarland's menu: "Ed's Caesar." She has never eaten it, but she and her lawyers claim it is made from her own Caesar salad recipe, which calls for a coddled egg and English muffin croutons. She learned it from her mother, who extracted it decades ago from the chef at a long-gone Los Angeles restaurant. It became a kind of signature at Pearl. And although she taught Mr. McFarland how to make it, she said she had guarded the recipe more closely than some restaurateurs watch their wine cellars. "When I taught him, I said, 'You will never make this anywhere else,' " she insisted. According to lawyers for Ms. Charles, the Caesar salad recipe is a trade secret and Mr. McFarland had no more business taking it with him after he left than a Coca-Cola employee entrusted with the formula for Diet Coke. Mr. McFarland called the allegation that he was a Caesar salad thief "a pretty ridiculous claim." "I have my own recipes for my items," he said. Asked to elaborate on the differences between his restaurant and Pearl, Mr. McFarland said: "I'd say it's a lot more upscale than Pearl. A lot neater, a lot cleaner and a lot nicer looking." Ed's Lobster Bar incorporates novel features like a raw bar and a skylight, he said; as for the white marble bar, he said one could be seen in "every raw bar" in Boston, where he had done "additional homework in designing the dining room." Calling the lawsuit "a complete shock to me," Mr. McFarland went on to say: "I just find it interesting that she'd want to draw attention to the fact that she's bringing a lawsuit against me that's just going to bring more business my way. I personally have nothing to be concerned about, in my opinion." Other chefs, however, are taking intellectual property rights seriously. One of Mr. Valauskas's clients, Homaro Cantu, has applied for patents on a number of his culinary inventions, like a method for printing pictures of food on flavored, edible paper. Mr. Cantu also makes his cooks sign a nondisclosure agreement before they so much as boil water at Moto, his restaurant in Chicago. Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, said that this almost seemed an inevitable result of bringing lawyers into the kitchen. "The first thing a lawyer would say is have all your people sign nondisclosure agreements," he said. "It's a classic American marriage between food and law." Few chefs have followed Mr. Cantu's footsteps all the way to the Patent and Trademark Office. One who did is David Burke, the chef at David Burke & Donatella, on the Upper East Side and other restaurants. He said he had trademarked a "swordfish chop" and "salmon pastrami" but no longer tried to defend those terms from copycats. "You've got to chase people down if they use it. I got tired of it," he said. But he said he still applied for trademarks on more recent innovations, like his bacon-flavored spray. Many chefs are skeptical that intellectual property law conforms to their line of work. Tom Colicchio said that he had decided not to do anything about a sandwich shop that he considers a clone of his sandwich chain, 'Wichcraft. "There's nothing you can do," he said. "You can't protect recipes, you can't protect what a place looks like, it's impossible." But Ms. Charles is willing to spend some time and money to prove her point. (She once sued the partner she opened Pearl with, Mary Redding, in an ownership dispute. Ms. Redding went on to open her own West Village seafood restaurant, Mary's Fish Camp.) Ms. Charles has come to think that if this case forces Ed's Lobster Bar to change until it no longer resembles Pearl Oyster Bar, it could be the most influential thing she has ever done. "I thought if I could have success with this lawsuit, that could be an important contribution," she said. "If some guy in California is having problems, he could go to his lawyer and look at this case and say, 'Maybe we can do something about it.' " -- "Press ON: Nothing in the world can take the place of Perseverance. TALENT will not; Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with Talent. GENIUS will not; Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. EDUCATION will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Only...PERSISTENCE and DETERMINATION alone are omnipotent." From devilspot at yahoo.com Fri Jun 29 02:18:48 2007 From: devilspot at yahoo.com (protima pandey) Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:48:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] RTI Fellowship- Bihar Message-ID: <816584.12518.qm@web32214.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Please see attached announcement and contact information. Protima Pandey Batch of '98 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LG & DES Group, is interested to give one fellowship of Rs 2000/- per month for one year to promote RTI Activities in Bihar. Fellowship will be arranged by Madhuri Sewa Nyas (LG & DES Group). As Madhuri Sewa Nyas is not taking any grant from any funding agency or department or ministry, thus this Fellowship will be arranged by Society Owned Economic System (SOES). Interested Activists can apply for this fellowship. Please send application at fellowship at localgov ernance.org Please forward this e-mail to the suitable and committed RTI Activists in Bihar. love vivek -- Vivek Umrao (Committed to Last Person of Society with Social Governance) -- Please visit-- www.localgovernance .org www.localgovernance .org/socialgover nance.html www.localgovernance .org/amendments. html www.localgovernance .org/localgovern ance.html www.localgovernance .org/socialartic les.html www.localgovernance .org/projects. html www.localgovernance .org/socialcapit al.html www.localgovernance .org/photoalbum. html **** Former Researcher- Indian Institute of Management (IIM) * Coordinator- Local Governance & Decentralized Economy Social Group * Vice Chairman- Koya Wes Institute * Member- Tarun Bharat Sangh, Jal Biradari * Former Secretary-to- Trustee Secretary.- GSN, Rajghat, ND * Former Member- National Projects Coordination Committee ASHA ***WORK FIELDS --- Decentralized Economy, Social Democracy, Water Issues, Education, Human Values, Decentralized & Local Technology, Street Play, Tribal Solutions, Social Corporate systems, Alternative Writings. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] A cup of coffee, an education for lifetime- You choose! www.ashanet.org --------------------------------- Luggage? GPS? Comic books? Check out fitting gifts for grads at Yahoo! Search. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20070628/cd63edca/attachment.html