From fred at bytesforall.org Tue Apr 1 01:43:07 2008 From: fred at bytesforall.org (=?UTF-8?Q?Frederick_Noronha?= =?UTF-8?Q?_[=E0=A5=9E=E0=A4=B0?= =?UTF-8?Q?=E0=A5=87=E0=A4=A6=E0=A4=B0=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=95?= =?UTF-8?Q?_=E0=A4=A8=E0=A5=8B=E0=A4=B0?= =?UTF-8?Q?=E0=A5=8B=E0=A4=A8=E0=A4=AF=E0=A4=BE]?=) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 01:43:07 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Optical disc legislation... tackling "piracy" at the production end? An interesting backgrounder... Message-ID: <8ea78e010803311313n32043f9eu2618135508b5b164@mail.gmail.com> http://ebc-india.com/lawyer/articles/2002v5a5.htm Optical Disc Legislation: A New Tool to Combat Digital Piracy by Anju Jain* Cite as : (2002) 5 SCC (Jour) 26 1. Introduction Distribution of entertainment content on optical media such as compact discs (CDs) and digital video discs (DVDs) has fed the boom in worldwide consumption of film, music and entertainment software. Unfortunately, optical media piracy has become an increasing threat to these key copyright industries. It is estimated that in Hong Kong alone the losses to the US Motion Picture Industry due to optical media piracy of film titles is estimated at US $ 30 million in 1998 and has more than doubled in 1999.2 Countries like Malaysia, Taiwan, China, Philippines and Macua also encounter high levels of optical media piracy. These countries have become major export centres for much of the infringing optical disc products appearing in US, Latin America and Europe where the VCD/DVD hardware base is growing.3 Till recently, piracy, both analog and digital, has been fought through the traditional protections offered under copyright laws. However, optical disc piracy comes with new challenges. An explosion in the world's capacity to produce optical media products has accompanied the growing demand for these products. Unfortunately, production capacity greatly exceeds legitimate demand, and much of this excess capacity is devoted to unauthorized production.4 Copyright laws protect content and its unauthorized copying and distribution. However, this often becomes difficult. For example distribution of optical products is so rapid that copies of the film "Dinosaur" which opened in the United States on 19-5-2000 were available days later in Kuala Lumpur's night markets and a month before its official Malaysian release.5 Therefore a new legal mechanism, the optical disc regulation, is being adopted in high piracy regions to combat the problem at the manufacturing stage. This paper discusses how the new optical disc law seeks to combat piracy at the manufacturing stage. Beginning with an overview of the optical disc manufacturing process and the magnitude of the piracy problem, the paper discusses basic elements of an effective optical disc law,6 the WTO obligations of member countries in enforcing an optical disc regulation and lastly, the status of actual implementation and enforcement of this law in the high piracy countries. -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | Ym/Gmailtalk: fredericknoronha http://fn.goa-india.org | fred at bytesforall.org Independent Journalist | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9970157402 ---------------------------------------------------------- From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Tue Apr 1 12:28:21 2008 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 12:28:21 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] No codes available, 'VT' on aircraft to stay Message-ID: <908adbd0803312358jc18aa74j404c92010d485a3b@mail.gmail.com> http://www.indianexpress.com/printerFriendly/290701.html No codes available, 'VT' on aircraft to stay Express news service Posted online: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 at 2335 hrs IST New Delhi, March 31 Nearly four years after the Union Civil Aviation Ministry started efforts to replace the current nationality code VT (it stands for Victorian or Viceroy's Territory) on every aircraft, its attempts to take up the issue with International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) have also come to a naught. Reason, no code which signifies 'India' is available. The Ministry is keen to shed this colonial remnant and replace it with codes like IN for India or BH for Bharat or even HI for Hindustan. But none of these are available. While the B series is with China, I series is with Italy. The options available are X or V and that have no Indian resonance. "We have made all efforts, yet we have not found anything which could represent India as the aircraft nationality code. While we would very much like to replace VT, we cannot just give it up till we have a reasonable alternative", said a ministry official. Meanwhile, the debate on serving mild alcoholic drinks like wine and beer on domestic flights has taken another turn with the Ministry receiving representations from various grape growers and breweries. "There has been a case for serving mild alcoholic drinks on flights and representations have been coming many quarters including grape growers and breweries. Even the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has approached us saying atleast international norms and standards should be followed on serving of drinks", said sources in the Ministry of Civil Aviation. In fact, even MPs have been making a pitch for allowing domestic carriers to permit some harmless beer and wines. In the consultative committee meeting of parliamentarians, MP Tarlochan Singh had suggested that wine be served like bottled water and Dr M S Gill backed Singh. Rajiv Shukla, however, argued the case for grape growers. He had said a delegation of grape growing farmers from Maharashtra had met him and requested him to ensure that wines be served on flights. From hbs.law at gmail.com Fri Apr 4 11:18:11 2008 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 11:18:11 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Foundation Paying Drug Cos to Develop Drugs Message-ID: <8b60429e0804032248v348dfadcvf57d91a27b33a422@mail.gmail.com> Somebody has to pay-up to develop new medicines or improve existing ones. See one more approach below. If you, God or Marx or Chairman Mao forbid, had cystic fibrosis, would you think this is good news? Or would you still wait until all the patent system and medicine research is nicely buried in "sarkari" (government) laboratories? There are only two solutions to paying up for medical research: (1) Increase the patient's paying ability for medicines via leveraging (medical insurance, group health schemes, etc) or (2) public funding for all kinds of medical research. Either way, someone will have to pay salaries of chemists and doctors working in research labs and the risks taken in deploying money for development. There is a third way, that of some God's official representatives on earth, just offer people palliative care (Crocin is suffice) and let them suffer. But here again Marx and Chaiman Mao would object. Damn the doctrines! No offense is intended. It is great fun pitting Marx-Mao against God and their official representatives on earth :-) Regards, Hasit -------------------- Excerpt Full Story Link: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2008/tc2008042_241404.htm?campaign_id=rss_topStories A Healthy Gamble for Cystic Fibrosis In an unusual move, a foundation is paying pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs to fight the disease, with promising results by John Carey " alt="" border="0" /> Ten years ago, Dr. Robert Beall was worried that an opportunity to develop new drugs for cystic fibrosis patients was being squandered. The faulty gene that causes the inherited disease had been discovered nearly a decade before. Researchers had made great strides understanding the biological defect, which leads to progressively worse lung disease. But aside from failed attempts at gene therapy, no drug companies had joined the quest for new treatments. "We were frustrated," says Beall, president of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. "Companies only wanted blockbuster drugs, and no one was willing to spend money on cystic fibrosis," a disease that afflicts just 35,000 people in the U.S. But rather than fuming, "I took the biggest gamble I ever made," Beall recalls. If the pharmaceutical industry wouldn't try to develop cystic fibrosis (CF) drugs on its own, the foundation would pay it to do so. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/defanged-9 Size: 3430 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20080404/4208a0be/attachment.bin From patrice at xs4all.nl Sun Apr 6 02:59:12 2008 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 23:29:12 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Fwd: OOXML Blues: The World Sighs as ISO Becomes Irrelevant Message-ID: <7946.79.22.125.147.1207430952.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> bwo the Hippies from Hell list / Aldert Hazenberg Hi, Roy Schestowitz wrote an article that I think explains exactly what went wrong with OOXML and how MS destroyed ISO in the process. http://boycottnovell.com/2008/04/01/iso-irrelevance/ A key element of the article : -----8<------- To quote ISO itself: “This year WG1 have had another major development that has made it almost impossible to continue with our work within ISO. The influx of P members whose only interest is the fast-tracking of ECMA 376 as ISO 29500 has led to the failure of a number of key ballots. Though P members are required to vote, 50% of our current members, and some 66% of our new members, blatantly ignore this rule despite weekly email reminders and reminders on our website. As ISO require at least 50% of P members to vote before they start to count the votes we have had to reballot standards that should have been passed and completed their publication stages at Kyoto. This delay will mean that these standards will appear on the list of WG1 standards that have not been produced within the time limits set by ISO, despite our best efforts. The disparity of rules for PAS, Fast-Track and ISO committee generated standards is fast making ISO a laughing stock in IT circles. The days of open standards development are fast disappearing. Instead we are getting “standardization by corporation”, something I have been fighting against for the 20 years I have served on ISO committees. I am glad to be retiring before the situation becomes impossible. I wish my colleagues every success for their future efforts, which I sincerely hope will not prove to be as wasted as I fear they could be.” -----8<------- Aldert. -- The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny..." -- Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) The fundamental problems in IT security are no longer about technology. -- Bruce Schneier From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Sun Apr 6 04:22:47 2008 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:52:47 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] ACLU: You Can't Patent Pure Abstraction References: <47D63043.19462CCF@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> <47D6A53D.E51AF714@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <47F802BF.A76F6F1D@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> > http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/gen/34784prs20080404.html > http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/freespeech/in_re_bilski_aclu_amicus.pdf --- ACLU Introduces First Amendment Argument In Key Patent Law Case (4/4/2008) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (212)549-2666; media at aclu.org Patenting Abstract Ideas Violates The Constitution, Group Says WASHINGTON - Introducing a rare argument applying the First Amendment to patent law, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a friend of the court brief today urging a federal court to uphold the denial of a patent that would, if awarded, violate freedom of speech. In the brief, the ACLU argues that Bernard L. Bilski is seeking a patent for an abstract idea, and that abstract ideas are not patentable under the First Amendment. "The court must ensure that any test it uses in determining whether to award a patent is in line with the Constitution," said Christopher Hansen, senior staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working Group, who filed the brief. "If the government had the authority to grant exclusive rights to an idea, the fundamental purpose of the First Amendment - to protect an individual's right to thought and expression - would be rendered meaningless." In 2006, Bilski sought a patent for his idea that the weather risk involved in buying and selling commodities could be minimized if sellers had conversations with two buyers instead of one. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied his request and the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences affirmed the denial. Bilski appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the court has agreed to hear the case in a single joint session in May. "Patent law prohibits the patenting of abstract ideas, but recently the courts and the patent office have been granting patents that consist essentially of speech or thought," said Hansen. "If the government continues to allow patents of speech or thought it risks violating the First Amendment. No one can have a monopoly on an idea or prohibit speech on a particular subject." The ACLU's brief is available online here: www.aclu.org/freespeech/gen/34783lgl20080403.html From the.solipsist at gmail.com Wed Apr 9 02:37:06 2008 From: the.solipsist at gmail.com (Pranesh Prakash) Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 02:37:06 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] =?windows-1252?q?Symposium_on_the_Challenges_to_Ind?= =?windows-1252?q?ia=92s_Patent_Regime_=7C_NLSIU=2C_Bangalore_=7C_A?= =?windows-1252?q?pril_12_=26_13?= Message-ID: <4785f1e20804081407t46ecd62dr7ba429829d8f1920@mail.gmail.com> Dear All,* *National Law School of India Review, the bi-annual journal of the National Law School, Bangalore is organising the First *NLSIR Symposium on the "Challenges to India's Patent Regime"*. The Symposium is being held from *12th – 13th April (Saturday and Sunday)* at the *NLSIU campus in Nagarbhavi, Bangalore* and is intended to promote healthy debate and discussion amongst all the stakeholders involved. The Symposium has been structured to discuss the cutting edge issues relating to the Indian patent regime. Over four sessions, it looks to cover the theoretical justifications for patents, India's role as a country which is a signatory to TRIPS, the contentious issue of pharmaceutical patents and finally an analysis of possible judicial attitudes towards patent law and legislation in India. The Symposium brings together judges of the Supreme Court, patent attorneys from the USA, senior advocates, technical experts, ideologues and activists to facilitate constructive discussion of the issues set out and the best way forward for India's patent law. Prominent speakers include – *Judiciary* Justice AR Lakshmanan, Chairman Law Commission of India; Justice PP Naolekar, Judge Supreme Court of India; Justice Ravindra Bhat, Judge Delhi High Court; Justice DV Shylendra Kumar, Judge Karnataka High Court *Academics* Dr. Anil Gupta, IIM Ahmedabad; Shamnad Basheer, Oxford IP Research Centre; Srividhya Raghavan, Oklahoma University; T. Ramakrishna, NLSIU; Sudhir Krishnaswamy, NLSIU *Bar* Feroz Ali Khader, Advocate High Court of Madras; Aditya Sondhi, Advocate Karnataka High Court; Vinay Aravind, Poovayya & Poovayya *Public Interest* Leena Menghaney, Access Campaign Manager - India, MSF; Mr. Gopa Kumar, CENTAD; Dr. Anand Grover, Director, Lawyers' Collective For registration, please contact Apurva Rai, +919886208285. For more details visit – http://www.nlsir.in/symposium.htm or contact Arghya Sengupta, +919886023232. Regards, Pranesh Prakash -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20080409/2d0fd771/attachment-0001.html From lawrence at altlawforum.org Wed Apr 9 09:38:40 2008 From: lawrence at altlawforum.org (Lawrence Liang) Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:38:40 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Shekhar Kapur on IP and Piracy Message-ID: <47FC4148.7090000@altlawforum.org> Came across some interesting references to IP and piracy from the film industry, and was delighted to see Shekhar kapur's response from his blog which is vastly different fomr Aamir Khan and Yash Copra and Co. http://www.screenindia.com/news/Piracy-is-Bollywoods-greatest-concern/284830/ http://www.shekharkapur.com/blog/archives/2006/11/intellectual_pr.htm Intellectual Property and Piracy I have been both attending and speaking on conferences on the future of Media and Technology. I use the two terms together as more and more Technlogy and Entertainment/Media are converging to become the same bussiness. One thing that consistantly comes up is the question of Intellectual property and Piracy. I think the lawyers/Corporations have got it completely wrong... Intellectual Property (IP) is not and cannot be either constant or extreme. If it were, then in the modern world there would be no chance of sharing of ideas, of scientific discovery, even of propogation of faith. Imagine if the Bible, the Koran or The Mahabharatha were protected by IP ? Imagine if the teachings of Buddha were protected by an IP just because one of his disciples actually wrote them down as he spoke. Imagine if Einstein's equations were patented or protected from use wthout financial considerations. Where would scientific discovery be ? One of the problems with scientific discovery these days, especially in the field of medicine, such as a cure for Aids, is that groups or individuals are terrified by the idea of sharing discoveries in case they cannot protect their financial interests. I am not denying that people must be rewarded for their effort, and not inconsiderable expense. But when the whole scientific and medical communities are motivated by one just goal, the creation of products that are so well protected that they can extract huge profit for a huge amount of time, it all becomes a bit ghoulish. But let me get back to my own field. Media and Entertainment. We are more and more moving int a digital and an instantaneous world. Where the commercial life of a product may be huge but for shorter and shorter periods of time. For example a Video on youtube when it works ut its revenue models. A popular video in the future may get a billion downloads in a couple of days and make a billion dollars. In that scenario, how long would the video maker ask for protection of intellectual property ? One week maybe ? And then allow the video to be downloaded free, so that he/she gets a huge following for the next video. I know this is an extreme example, but then it is good to look at extreme examples to understand the nature of the problem. Corporations scream about Piracy. The big music corporations went ballistic and got Napster shut down. Only to realize that Napster showed them the way to revive their flagging music sales through single song downloads. Napster was the origins of the Ipod and Itunes. Microsoft complain about Piracy in India and China and calculate the loss of revenue in billions fo dollars. Knowing full well that none of the people who bought pirated copies of the software would have ever been able to afford buy the software at it's official retail price. But in using their (even pirated) software, they are becoming users of hardware and software, and are entering the consumer market. Surely that must be good for growth of Microsoft. At a meeting at the World Economic Forum, one gentleman was complaining that he was being ripped of in India. he had paid huge sums of money for the rights to the brand of Tommy Hillifiger in India, and now people were just making T shirts and printing the Tommy Hillifiger logo and selling them on the street side at a fraction of his cost. He wanted them arrested and put into jail for Piracy. Hey ! Ever consider what extra intrinsic value you are providing the consumer by printing a brand name on the T shirt ? Till u do that, there will always be piracy. For the pirate is probaby a small trader looking for an oppertunity to make some money to look after his family. Shekhar From fred at bytesforall.org Thu Apr 10 02:24:26 2008 From: fred at bytesforall.org (=?UTF-8?Q?Frederick_Noronha?= =?UTF-8?Q?_[=E0=A5=9E=E0=A4=B0?= =?UTF-8?Q?=E0=A5=87=E0=A4=A6=E0=A4=B0=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=95?= =?UTF-8?Q?_=E0=A4=A8=E0=A5=8B=E0=A4=B0?= =?UTF-8?Q?=E0=A5=8B=E0=A4=A8=E0=A4=AF=E0=A4=BE]?=) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:24:26 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Seeking GI Protection For Feni, An Indian Brew With A Strong Whiff In-Reply-To: <8ea78e010804091040m45ad53a5h47f528c27789cf0e@mail.gmail.com> References: <8ea78e010804091040m45ad53a5h47f528c27789cf0e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8ea78e010804091354v6d7f7948x9634b0dc1e83cf7a@mail.gmail.com> http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=998 Intellectual Property Watch 9 April 2008 Seeking GI Protection For Feni, An Indian Brew With A Strong Whiff Posted by William New @ 2:27 pm Link This Article Leave a Comment Print By Frederick Noronha for Intellectual Property Watch GOA, INDIA - Feni, liquor distilled from cashew apple, is a traditional drink from a small state. Centuries after it was first used in its native Goa, the alcohol is seeking to branch into new markets and attract more drinkers. Officials here believe the geographical indication route could hold promise, an effort that appears to reflect an awakening in India of the economic possibilities in exclusive intellectual property rights. A geographical indication (GI) gives exclusive right to a region (town, province or country) to use a name for a product with certain characteristics that corresponds to their specific location. GIs are currently the focus of some debate at the high-level negotiations at the World Trade Organization. Goa is a 3,700-square kilometre former Portuguese colony on the west coast of India. Less than five centuries ago, the Portuguese brought in the cashew plant here from Brazil. Today, Goa is the only known place that uses the low-value cashew apple to churn out a strong-flavoured, unique-tasting alcoholic brew. Cashew apple nectar is fermented, then heated in a cauldron and the condensation collected. Warwick University principal investigator Dwijen Rangnekar leads a project on Localising Economic Control through GIs. In Goa, they are working on Feni. He explains: "As evident from products like champagne, Scotch whiskey and tequila, GIs focus on the triple relationship between a product, its special qualities and the geographical territory of origin." Proponents of GIs argue that it can act as a "tool for development," a means of promoting rural development, and even a tool to gain market access. Likewise, GIs can preserve local know-how and natural resources - thus preventing the standardisation of food, contributing to social cohesion, and playing a positive role on local and national identity. GIs in India Rangnekar said geographical indications are a recent intellectual property right, introduced by the 1994 WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). In December 1999, the Indian Parliament passed the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act. GIs are administered by the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks who is also the Registrar of Geographical Indications, in Chennai, South India. Under Indian law, a GI originates from a definite geographical territory and can be used to identify agricultural, natural or manufactured goods. Manufactured goods should be produced or processed or prepared in that territory. Any GI-designated product should have a special quality or reputation or other characteristics. "So far some 61 products have come up to claim GIs in India," India's Director of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion T C James told Intellectual Property Watch. He said these include the famed Darjeeling tea, traditional textile items from different parts of India, and a number of agricultural products that were known to come from particular regions. India's government has put out a list of "examples of possible Indian geographical indications," including Basmati rice, the Kanchipuram silk saree, the Alphonso mango from coastal western India, the Nagpur orange, traditional leather-based footwear Kolhapuri chappal, and savoury snacks like the Bikaneri Bhujia and Agra Petha. Any association of persons, producers, organisation or authority can apply for a GI in India. The applicant must represent the interest of producers. Once granted, GIs are valid for 10 years, and then need renewal. Registration is seen as "affording better legal protection to facilitate an action for infringement," a background paper from the University of Warwick argued. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) attests that geographical indications are "understood by consumers to denote the origin and the quality of products." Many of them have acquired valuable reputations which, if not adequately protected, may be misrepresented by dishonest commercial operators, says WIPO. Challenges for Feni Supporters But more than the GI issue, in Goa, Feni is fighting a battle for survival on economic and other grounds. It faces sharp competition from other factory-crafted liquors, problems of adulteration, and the poor price its small-time distiller gets for it. "There was nobody to lay down standards, and nobody to test the standards" in the case of Feni, said Air Commander (Retd) P K Pinto of the Goa Chambers of Commerce and Industry. GCCI has played a key role in lobbying since 2001 for a GI for Feni. One of the biggest problems is Feni's classification as a "country liquor" by the official Excise authorities. This means it cannot be legally exported to other states of India, placing the odds against it, especially in times of growing market competition from other liquors. Feni has long been considered a "poor man's" drink, though now tourists and visitors have taken to it. The question remains whether GIs will come to the rescue of such products. Tiny Goa is still struggling to get the application process right. Frederick Noronha may be reached at info at ip-watch.ch. Filed under: * English * Biodiversity/Genetic Resources/Biotech * Technical Cooperation/Technology Transfer * Traditional and Indigenous Knowledge * WIPO * Trademarks/Geographical Indications * WTO/TRIPS * Developing Country Policy * Features * Lobbying This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. All of the news articles and features on Intellectual Property Watch are also subject to a Creative Commons License which makes them available for widescale, free, non-commercial reproduction and translation. You can sign up for automatic notifications of these stories, via the RSS feed or via the e-mail alerts. Recipients can choose the frequency of notifications as well as particular topics of greatest interest to them. The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-trackback.php?p=998 -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | Ym/Gmailtalk: fredericknoronha http://fn.goa-india.org | fred at bytesforall.org Independent Journalist | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9970157402 ---------------------------------------------------------- From lawrence at altlawforum.org Thu Apr 10 10:31:14 2008 From: lawrence at altlawforum.org (Lawrence Liang) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:31:14 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] More form Shekhar Kapur Message-ID: <47FD9F1A.20304@altlawforum.org> http://www.shekharkapur.com/blog/archives/2007/04/piracy_china_an.htm Some more from the man, this time on piracy, hollywood and china. First time that I am seeing a mainstream media person addressing the fiction of "imagined harms and losses caused by piracy" and the fiction of numbers. A number of people have been arguing that a pirated sale does not necessarily equal a lost sale ( see Pranesh's recent post as well), and this is reflected in his post Piracy, China and Hollywood So Hollywood and therefore the US is up in arms against Piracy of Hollywood movies in China, saying they are losing billions of dollars in revenue. What a white faced lie ! The fact is that 80% of the people that buy pirated copies of movies in China can either can not get to the theatres or just cannot afford either the ticket price, nor the price a fully priced DVD as per the US standard. They would just not see the film ... .. so I have no idea where this 'billions of dollars' in lost revenue comes form. It is just a fantasy figure cooked up. I have sat in enough meeting at varios forums where the moan of the West is Piracy in the East. What they don't say is that Piracy is actually casting the net for our product far far wider than the normally structured and legal channels would have allowed. Hey ... Indian films face the greatest Piracy problems, but the box office keeps going up. The pirated films are even played on regular Cable channels beamed straight into your TV set. Lets get this straight. The Pirates work on ground level and know how to get the product to the consumer at the price they want it, where they want it, and how they want it. Hollywood better get off it's high horse and learn, just as the music bussiness learnt from Napster. Had it not been for the chaos created by Napster ; Itunes, and DRM etc would not have been born. The music bussiness based on sale of DVD albums at jacked up prices would have collapsed. Shekhar From daya.shanker at deakin.edu.au Wed Apr 9 06:54:10 2008 From: daya.shanker at deakin.edu.au (Daya Shanker) Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:24:10 +1000 Subject: [Commons-Law] =?iso-8859-1?q?Symposium_on_the_Challenges_to_India?= =?iso-8859-1?q?=92s___Patent_Regime_=7C_NLSIU=2C_Bangalore_=7C_April_12_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?=26_13?= In-Reply-To: <4785f1e20804081407t46ecd62dr7ba429829d8f1920@mail.gmail.co m> References: <4785f1e20804081407t46ecd62dr7ba429829d8f1920@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080409112237.042c2920@deakin.edu.au> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20080409/93fc369f/attachment-0001.html From daya.shanker at deakin.edu.au Fri Apr 11 09:56:09 2008 From: daya.shanker at deakin.edu.au (Daya Shanker) Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:26:09 +1000 Subject: [Commons-Law] =?iso-8859-1?q?Symposium_on_the_Challenges_to_Ind_i?= =?iso-8859-1?q?a=92s___Patent_Regime_=7C_NLSIU=2C_Bangalore_=7C_A_pril_12?= =?iso-8859-1?q?_=26_13?= In-Reply-To: <4785f1e20804081407t46ecd62dr7ba429829d8f1920@mail.gmail.co m> References: <4785f1e20804081407t46ecd62dr7ba429829d8f1920@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080411142558.042d2c00@deakin.edu.au> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20080411/eda0c61c/attachment-0001.html From the.solipsist at gmail.com Sun Apr 13 21:08:59 2008 From: the.solipsist at gmail.com (Pranesh Prakash) Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 21:08:59 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] =?windows-1252?q?Symposium_on_the_Challenges_to_Ind?= =?windows-1252?q?ia=92s_Patent_Regime_=7C_NLSIU=2C_Bangalore_=7C_A?= =?windows-1252?q?_pril_12_=26_13?= Message-ID: <4785f1e20804130838j28c70d78q3d9bfd88a630feab@mail.gmail.com> Dear Mr. Shanker, I understand why you may have misgivings about our invitation of Mr. Basheer, but I believe your misgivings are unnecessary on two grounds: that our conference is meant to be inclusive; and that the wrongdoing you assert on Mr. Basheer's part is not a given. Firstly, the objective of this symposium is not to push forward a particular agendum, whether pro-pharma, anti-pharma, pro-IP or anti-IP, but to have broad-based discussions on the various sorts of changes and challenges that India's current patent regime is facing. While this might involve coming to a consensus as to solutions (and that would be welcomed), in our pragmatism we understand that a consensus might not be arrived at, and are ready to face that. The important thing is to explore issues, and all possible ways of addressing those issues. The benefits of one approach over another is not something that we wish to push during this symposium. This, I believe, is reflected by the wide variety of views and opinions that the speakers represent. Thus, simply put, Mr. Basheer's "close association" with the pharmaceutical industry does not hamper his participation in this symposium. In fact, to get a variety of views, such a association (if it did indeed exist) would even be preferable. The pharmaceutical industry is after all a stakeholder, just as the poverty-stricken medicine-less patient is a stakeholder. The relative weights of their stakeholding (and the issue of India being socialist) is not something I wish to get into here. Secondly, Mr. Basheer's "close association" with the pharmaceutical industry is not a given. As he has pointed out (and Chan Park has agreed), his report, part of which was copied without the necessary acknowledgement, by the Mashelkar Committee, was based on solid research and was substantiated. While we may disagree with the conclusions that he arrived at, the fact that it was well-argued is not, I believe, at dispute. The dispute is based on the questionable assumption that the source of funding of his research directly or indirectly affected his views and biased his conclusions. There is nothing to support that assumption, especially given that he has held those views even outside of that report. Funding of research and "mercenerisation" of research are different, and I see no evidence to Mr. Basheer's research being the latter. In any case, even Mr. Chan accepts that. Additionally, in case of doubt, I believe that he ought be given the benefit of the same. I hope you agree. Please note that these are my personal views, and not that of the organising committee. Finally, I must thank you for taking enough interest in the Symposium to respond! Regards, Pranesh On 4/11/08, Daya Shanker wrote: > > Dear Pranesh > It appears to be a very nice group of people but I do not see why ShamnadBasheer should be there. Didn't we discuss his role during the Karnataka > High Court's decision in Novartis and his close association with the > pharmaceutical industry? If a research output is based on the payment made > by the industry, it destroys total sense of ethics and morality and > definitely academic nature of the conference unless it is to provide > legitimacy to such research. I have nothing personal against him or anybody > but any mercenerisation of research destroys the total fabric of academic > morality. > daya shankerAAt 07:07 AM 9/04/2008, Pranesh Prakash wrote: > > Dear All,* > *National Law School of India Review, the bi-annual journal of the > National Law School, Bangalore is organising the First *NLSIR Symposium on > the "Challenges to India's Patent Regime"*. The Symposium is being held > from *12th – 13th April (Saturday and Sunday)* at the *NLSIU campus in > Nagarbhavi, Bangalore* and is intended to promote healthy debate and > discussion amongst all the stakeholders involved. > > The Symposium has been structured to discuss the cutting edge issues > relating to the Indian patent regime. Over four sessions, it looks to cover > the theoretical justifications for patents, India's role as a country which > is a signatory to TRIPS, the contentious issue of pharmaceutical patents and > finally an analysis of possible judicial attitudes towards patent law and > legislation in India. The Symposium brings together judges of the Supreme > Court, patent attorneys from the USA, senior advocates, technical experts, > ideologues and activists to facilitate constructive discussion of the issues > set out and the best way forward for India's patent law. Prominent speakers > include – > > *Judiciary* > Justice AR Lakshmanan, Chairman Law Commission of India; Justice PP > Naolekar, Judge Supreme Court of India; Justice Ravindra Bhat, Judge Delhi > High Court; Justice DV Shylendra Kumar, Judge Karnataka High Court > > *Academics* > Dr. Anil Gupta, IIM Ahmedabad; Shamnad Basheer, Oxford IP Research Centre; > Srividhya Raghavan, Oklahoma University; T. Ramakrishna, NLSIU; Sudhir > Krishnaswamy, NLSIU > > *Bar* > Feroz Ali Khader, Advocate High Court of Madras; Aditya Sondhi, Advocate > Karnataka High Court; Vinay Aravind, Poovayya & Poovayya > > *Public Interest* > Leena Menghaney, Access Campaign Manager - India, MSF; Mr. Gopa Kumar, > CENTAD; Dr. Anand Grover, Director, Lawyers' Collective > > For registration, please contact Apurva Rai, +919886208285. For more > details visit – http://www.nlsir.in/symposium.htm or contact Arghya > Sengupta, +919886023232. > > Regards, > Pranesh Prakash > _______________________________________________ commons-law mailing list > commons-law at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20080413/68ada51c/attachment.html From rachel.thompson at researchandmarkets.com Mon Apr 14 19:07:44 2008 From: rachel.thompson at researchandmarkets.com (Rachel Thompson) Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:37:44 GMT Subject: [Commons-Law] Intellectual Property Law Dictionary Message-ID: <20080414133724.A7EA31094039@mail.sarai.net> I enclose details of our intellectual property law dictionary. Designed for lawyers, law students, professors, and anyone who works closely with intellectual property issues, The Intellectual Property Law Dictionary contains four sections explaining the meaning and legal background of terms used in copyright, trademark, patent, and trade dress, both in the U.S. and internationally. More than just a dictionary, it provides detailed citations to source materials with every definition. You'll also find an "Overview of Intellectual Property" explaining the essentials of each type of intellectual property and appendices offering concise histories of the law of copyright, patents, trademark and trade dress. This book is updated as needed, generally two times each year. http://www.researchandmarkets.com/product/529eef/intellectual_property_law_dictionary Author Info: Rachel Gader-Shafran Rachel Gader-Shafran has a BA in Political Science from UCSB, an MA in applied linguistics from UCLA and a JD from American University, Washington College of Law, cum laude. The author has taught as an Adjunct Professor at American University, Washington College of Law and has published The Intellectual Property Law Dictionary with Law Journal Press and The International Students' Survival Guide to Law School in the United States, as well as, several articles on intellectual property law. In the field of applied linguistics, the author has taught and run programs at UCLA, Georgetown University, The George Washington University, Hebrew University, Jerusalem and in Japan for Nippon Steel Corporation. She has several publications in the field of applied linguistics. Board of Editors Christine Haight Farley is an Associate Professor of Law at American University, Washington College of Law. Professor Farley teaches courses in Intellectual Property Law, U.S. Trademark Law, International and Comparative Trademark Law, and Law and the Visual Arts. Professor Farley also serves as Associate Director of the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic. Before joining the law faculty at American, Professor Farley practiced copyright and trademark law with Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman, P.C. in New York. Professor Farley received her J.D. from SUNY Buffalo School of Law in 1994, and she received her LL.M. from Columbia Law School in 1997. She is a member of the Intellectual Property Section of the American Bar Association, the Law & Society Association, The Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, a Member at Large of ICANN, and currently serves as Chair of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools. Peter Jaszi teaches at the Washington College of Law of American University in Washington, D.C., where he also directs the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic. He specializes in domestic and international copyright law. Prof. Jaszi is an experienced copyright litigator and a frequent speaker to professional audiences in the United States and abroad. He also is a co-author of a standard copyright textbook. Alone and with Martha Woodmansee, he has written several articles on copyright history and theory; together they edited The Construction of Authorship, published by Duke University Press. In 1994, Prof. Jaszi was a member of the Librarian of Congress' Advisory Commission on Copyright Registration and Deposit. Since 1995 he has been active in the Digital Future Coalition, which he helped to organize. He is a former Trustee of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., and a current member of the editorial board of its journal. Leonard Klein is Legal Research Librarian and Intellectual Property Subject Specialist at the Jacob Burns Law Library of George Washington University Law School. In addition to providing research support to faculty, students, alumni and visiting scholars, he selects new resources for the Library's extensive intellectual property collection. From 1983 until 1991, Mr. Klein was Senior Research Librarian and Manager of Information Services at the Federal Judicial Center. He has held positions at the law school libraries of Harvard, Pittsburgh, and Yeshiva universities. His teaching activities include courses in basic and advanced legal research at the Catholic University School of Library & Information Science, the USDA Graduate School, and the legal assistant program at Bentley College. Mr. Klein is a member of the American Association of Law Libraries, the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C., the American Bar Association, and the American Intellectual Property Law Association. Eliav Korakh is a partner at Borochov, Korakh, Eliezri & Co. He specializes in Patent Law and deals with the USPTO and international agencies in his practice. He has particular experience in the areas of computer hardware and software, telecommunications, optics, applied mathematics and physics, electronics and medical devices, and business and commercial Law. Mr. Korakh is an adjunct lecturer for the William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management in the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology and a lecturer for the Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration, Tel-Aviv University, in the field of Technological Intellectual Property. Mr. Korakh received a B.Sc. in physics from the University of Tel Aviv, Israel in 1993, where he also received a L.L.B. in 1995. Admitted as a registered patent attorney in 1993, Mr. Korakh has worked at the law firm of Seligsohn & Gabrieli from 1991 until 1995 and the law firm of Eitan, Pearl, Latzer & Cohen-Zedek, from 1996 until 1997. He is a member of the Israel Bar Association, Israel Association of Patent Attorneys, and AIPPI. For more information please click on: http://www.researchandmarkets.com/product/529eef/intellectual_property_law_dictionary Title Index: PART I Copyright SECTION 1 Dictionary of United States Domestic Copyright Terms APPENDICES: Appendix A: Short History of Copyright Law in the United States Appendix B: Charts on Sources of United States Domestic Copyright Law Appendix C: Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Appendix D: Copyright and Cyberspace SECTION 2 Dictionary of International Copyright Terms APPENDICES: Appendix A: Charts on Sources of International Treaties and European Union (EU) Directives Appendix B: Treatise and Their Member States PART II PATENTS SECTION 1 Dictionary of United States Domestic Patent Terms APPENDICES: Appendix A: Short History of Patent Law in the United States Appendix B: Charts on Sources of United States Domestic Patent Law SECTION 2 Dictionary of International Patent Terms APPENDICES: Appendix A: Charts on Sources of International Treaties and European Union (EU) Treaties Appendix B: List of Treaties and Their Member States Appendix C: List of Websites of World Wide Patent Offices PART III TRADEMARKS SECTION 1 Dictionary of United States Domestic Trademark Terms APPENDICES: Appendix A: Short History of the Development of Trademark Law in the United States Appendix B: Charts on Sources of United States Domestic Trademark Law Appendix C: Trademark and Cyberspace SECTION 2 Dictionary of International Trademark Terms APPENDICES: Appendix A: Charts on Sources of International Treaties and EU Treaties Appendix B: List of Treaties and Their Member States PART IV TRADE DRESS SECTION 1 Dictionary of United States Domestic Trade Dress Terms APPENDICES: Appendix A: Development of Trade Dress Law in the United States Appendix B: Charts on Sources of United States Trade Dress Law SECTION 2 Dictionary of International Trade Dress Terms APPENDICES: Appendix A: Charts on Sources of International Trade Dress Law PART V NANOTECHNOLOGY LAW SECTION I Dictionary of United States Nanotechnology Law Terms APPENDICES: Appendix A: Nanotechnology: New Paradigms and Conversing Technology Appendix B: Short History of Nanotechnology in the United States Appendix C: Charts on the Sources of United States Domestic Nanotechnology Law Appendix D: United States Patent and Trademark Office: Cross Reference Chart for Nanotechnology PART VI Trade Secrets Section 1 Dictionary of United States Domestic Trade Secret Terms APPENDICES: Appendix A: Charts on Sources of Domestic Trade Secret Law Section 2 Dictionary of International Trade Secret Terms APPENDICES: Appendix A: Charts on Sources of International Trade Secret Law Pricing: Hard Copy : EUR 266 Ordering - Three easy ways to place your order: 1] Order online at http://www.researchandmarkets.com/product/529eef/intellectual_property_law_dictionary 2] Order by fax: Print an Order form from http://www.researchandmarkets.com/product/529eef/intellectual_property_law_dictionary and Fax to +353 1 4100 980 3] Order by mail: Print an Order form from http://www.researchandmarkets.com/product/529eef/intellectual_property_law_dictionary and post to Research and Markets Ltd. Guinness Center, Taylors Lane, Dublin 8. Ireland. Related Titles also available from Research and Markets: Intellectual Property Law in the European Union: A Country-by-Country Review - http://www.researchandmarkets.com/product/529eef/intellectual_property_law_in_the_european_uni Licensing of Intellectual Property - http://www.researchandmarkets.com/product/529eef/licensing_of_intellectual_property Intellectual Property Licensing: Forms and Analysis - http://www.researchandmarkets.com/product/529eef/intellectual_property_licensing_forms_and_an Intellectual Property Law: Damages and Remedies - http://www.researchandmarkets.com/product/529eef/intellectual_property_law_damages_and_remedi Federal Taxation of Intellectual Property Transfers - http://www.researchandmarkets.com/product/529eef/federal_taxation_of_intellectual_property_tra Intellectual Property Law: Commercial, Creative and Industrial Property - http://www.researchandmarkets.com/product/529eef/intellectual_property_law_commercial_creati Thank you for your consideration. Best Regards, Rachel Thompson Senior Manager Research and Markets Ltd rachel.thompson at researchandmarkets.com Subscribe: Click on http://www.researchandmarkets.com/register.asp You can subscribe free for regular details on new research in your sector. Please note you are currently subscribed as commons-law at sarai.net If you no longer wish to receive our market research updates, please reply to this message with Suppression Request as the subject line, or use the link below http://www.researchandmarkets.com/u.asp?f=u&e=commons-law at sarai.net From daya.shanker at deakin.edu.au Tue Apr 15 10:30:35 2008 From: daya.shanker at deakin.edu.au (Daya Shanker) Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:00:35 +1000 Subject: [Commons-Law] =?iso-8859-1?q?Symposium_on_the_Challenges_to_India?= =?iso-8859-1?q?=92s___Patent_Regime_=7C_NLSIU=2C_Bangalore_=7C_April_12_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?=26_13?= In-Reply-To: <4785f1e20804130838j28c70d78q3d9bfd88a630feab@mail.gmail.co m> References: <4785f1e20804130838j28c70d78q3d9bfd88a630feab@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080415135340.043619a0@deakin.edu.au> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20080415/5dc3f12d/attachment-0001.html From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Wed Apr 16 09:02:49 2008 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:02:49 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] =?windows-1252?q?When_an_issue_of_copyright_law_tur?= =?windows-1252?q?ned_into_a_discourse_on_the_writer=92s_art?= Message-ID: <908adbd0804152032k72fe595araed28a6b50b92332@mail.gmail.com> Date:16/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/16/stories/2008041657102000.htm Back International When an issue of copyright law turned into a discourse on the writer's art Ed Pilkington J.K. Rowling in court in an emotion-tinged bid to fight American publisher's move to bring out a lexicon of Harry Potter works J.K. Rowling New York: On the face of it, the case that was heard in Court 24A of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan promised to be a dry affair: a dispute over copyright between an author, and a publisher wanting to print an A to Z of her work. But things got interesting when the author, Joanne Rowling, admitted from the witness stand that she was holding back her tears. "I really don't want to cry," she said, "because I'm British." She may have sold millions of books and amassed a fortune that makes her a dollar billionaire (she is now worth £545 million), but when it came to giving legal evidence for the first time in her life, even Ms. Rowling found the experience humbling. Amid the sombre wood panelling — shades of Hogwarts there — and under the eagle of American justice, she poured her heart out about her debt to the characters she created, and about her disdain for those she accuses of plundering her labours. Ms. Rowling had flown in from Scotland to appear in person in a case in which she and Warner Bros, the studio behind the film adaptations of her Harry Potter books, are seeking to block the publication of an unauthorised encyclopaedia to the series. The defendant is a small publisher from Michigan, RDR Books, which wants to print the Lexicon, a 400-page Harry Potter guide to be priced at $24.95. Called as the first witness, Ms. Rowling began by decrying what she called the "wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work." If words could kill, the author of the Lexicon, a former librarian called Steve Vander Ark, would be long gone. Ms. Rowling said the quality of his encyclopaedia was derisory, debasing and shameless, adding: "It's sloppy, lazy and it takes my work wholesale." Later, she said the Lexicon was among the class of "profit-driven books that seek to jump on the bandwagon, lifting the facts that make up the Harry Potter world and reselling them." Under the direction of her counsel, Ms. Rowling gave a short account of her hard rise to fame, relating how she relied on welfare payments to see her through writing the first volume, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. She recorded, too, the £8,000 granted to her by the Scottish Arts Council to pay for childcare: "At the time it was an absolute fortune." She was flabbergasted, she said, by the success of the books. But it was when she was asked by Cendali what Harry Potter meant to her that her eyes welled. "It means setting aside my children, everything." Did she care about how her characters are depicted? "Very, very deeply, yes. It's my prime concern. Those characters meant so much to me over such a long period of time. It's very difficult for someone who is not a writer to understand what it means to create something. It's the closest thing to having a child. Those characters saved me. Not just in a material sense — though they did do that. There was a time when they saved my sanity." Judge Robert Patterson, sitting without jury, looked a little bemused that a case on copyright law had turned into a discourse on the writer's art. He will have to weigh up Rowling's and Warner Bros' desire to protect their intellectual property against the desire of RDR Books to publish what they see as a legitimate research tool. The publisher's lawyer praised the creative powers of Ms. Rowling but told the court that she was seeking to wield a different kind of power to "make the Lexicon disappear in our real world." There was plenty of detailed discussion of character and plot to delight Potter maniacs. Ms. Rowling complained that the Lexicon did not bother to record that the name Remus Lupin was a play on wolves, and that for her the character was partly an examination of the prejudice surrounding people with AIDS. And she was scathing that Vander Ark had missed her reference to Occamy in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It was a reference to Occam's razor, the principle that nothing should be presumed to exist if not absolutely necessary. A theory Judge Patterson will no doubt ponder hard in his judgment. — (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008 (c) Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Wed Apr 16 09:15:25 2008 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:15:25 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Copyright vs the right to copy Message-ID: <908adbd0804152045y651eca7an45f9b34610d0c68e@mail.gmail.com> http://www.indianexpress.com/printerFriendly/297292.html Copyright vs the right to copy Posted online: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 0005 hrs IST Lawrence Liang It may be difficult not to be enthusiastic about the recent Rs 2 crore settlement between the Roshans and composer Ram Sampath, who alleged that they had violated his copyright by using his song in their film Krazzy 4. It has all the trappings of a fairy tale suit in which the small creator wins against the might of the entertainment giants. It perhaps even reflects the original intent of copyright, which has otherwise served mainly the interests of large media corporations against small artists and creators. A number of commentators have hailed the suit and the settlement as a "landmark decision" that serves as an important precedent for future cases. Ram Sampath has himself gone on record saying that everyone in the creative field should get their hands on the 1957 Indian Copyright Act. Encouraged by Ram Sampath's success, we can therefore expect many more copyright claims in the field of music and creativity. While Ram Sampath's case may have been a clear case of unfair use, I would argue that we should be a little cautious in celebrating it as a landmark decision or as a positive step as far as creativity is concerned. The language of the case and the reportage around it rely very heavily on the language of theft, property and damages for infringement of copyright and plagiarism in music. This rather hasty leap of faith to stricter enforcement of music copyright does not seem to find too much support in the history of music itself. While there was surely a violation of propriety in the Ram Sampath case, the important question that emerges is the impact of thinking of creativity only in terms of property. The history of copying, appropriation and plagiarism is in fact central to the history of various forms of cultural production, including music. We should therefore be a little cautious when we celebrate this case for the quick remedy it provided to an act of copying. The act of copying has been central to the ways in which culture has flowed through various parts of the world, transcending the limitations set by space and time. Thus a Polish folk song, "Szla dzieweczka do gajeczka", becomes a part of Indian popular consciousness through its adaptation as Salil Chaudhury's "Dil Tadap Tadap Ke" from Madhumati. Secondly, the creation of music has always relied on adaptations, influences and inspirations, whether conscious or unconscious. It would be unfortunate if as a result of aggressive copyright suits, we reach a situation like the United States where even subconscious copying is held to be infringement. In a case brought by a band, The Chiffons, against former Beatle George Harrison, the court held that Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" was in infringement of The Chiffons' "He's so fine", even though the judge believed that Harrison did not intentionally copy the song and had only been inspired by it subconsciously. The history of creativity has been marked with a certain generosity in drawing the line between inspiration and mala fide copying, a line better guarded by the ethics of aesthetic practices than by strict penal laws of property. Music scholars have argued, for instance, that hip-hop, which relies on sampling existing tunes, has become less exciting as a result of the chilling effect that copyright has had on the ability to sample. Music has always posed a challenge to traditional ideas of copyright, and while it is well known that copyright merely protects ideas and not expressions, music complicates the idea-expression distinction further. Noted copyright scholar Siva Vaidyanathan asks: Is the six-string note of "Happy Birthday To You" an idea or an expression? Would playing the same note at different tempos constitute a new expression of the same idea? Would playing it differently on a different key constitute a new expression of the same idea? We need to recognise that different forms of cultural creations have a different relation to the act of copying. Rajesh Mehar in his history of Indian rock music has shown us that the act of copying was central to the way people learnt music, and it may be a better idea to rethink the one-size-fits-all approach that informs copyright law. At different points in her life, Helen Keller was accused of plagiarism. What people ignored is that the way Helen Keller learnt language and read was very different from an ordinary reader's, and she learnt not from sound and sight but from touch. In her defence she said, "Sometimes I think I ought to stop writing altogether, since I cannot tell surely which of my ideas are borrowed feathers, except for those which I gather from books in raised print." In our enthusiasm to protect the creator and ensure that he gets his just rewards, let's not forget that the sense of touch is not limited to the hand, but extends to our eyes and ears. It is only natural that when we create something, it will be influenced by things we have read, heard or seen, even if they are not our property. Walter Benjamin describes this form of mimicry as a form of learning as a "sensuous similarity", a right to copy, which should be as jealously guarded as copyright. The writer, a lawyer and cultural theorist, co-founded the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore Lawrence at altlawforum.org From patrice at xs4all.nl Wed Apr 16 17:13:55 2008 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:43:55 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Commons-Law] [Fwd: copyright dungeons and grey zones] Message-ID: <20567.87.194.2.170.1208346235.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> X-posting justified in this case., methink ;-) ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: copyright dungeons and grey zones From: "Felix Stalder" Date: Tue, April 15, 2008 22:22 To: nettime-l at kein.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright dungeons and grey zones --------------------------------- I recently spent two days in Amsterdam at the "Economies of the Commons" conference put together by Eric Kluitenberg and others (including myself in a minor editorial role) at DeBalie [1]. The aim of the conference was to look at long-term strategies to produce and maintain cultural resources in and for the commons. The presentations and discussions were all taped and are made accessible online. I recommend to check it out, it was a good conference, though I'm probably biased. What struck me the most was that one could clearly distinguish two camps, even though everyone agreed that making things available under the least strictive terms possible is a good idea. On the one side were those who work within the conventional constraints of copyright (i.e. authors/rights holders control their works). This group was, by and large, made up of representatives of large European audio-visual archives and of various multi-national EU funded projects. They sit on very large holdings (100'000s of hours of material) and command massive budget (100s of million euros) to digitize and make them available to the public. Taken together, these projects appear to reach the scale of, say, the Google books project. The other group was comprised of projects working outside these constraints, either because they work with public domain material (Prelinger archive), ignore copyright altogether (ubu.com, 'steal this film, II'), or work with open source models using copyright to protect user access rather than author control (blender.org). For the first group, the main problem is that as public institutions they perceive themselves as having to adhere to the most restrictive definitions of what is legal. Working under governments that are all professing the protection of copyrights to be essential to the European 'knowledge economy', they seem to have fully internalized that mission. So now, they are faced with mission impossible: making material widely available AND satisfy each and every rights-holder upfront. So, a good deal of each of their presentations was devoted to what they could not do and how digitizing the material does not make it more accessible. In the case of the Swedish archive, you still need to come to their building in downtown Stockholm to watch the tapes (ups, these are files now). Before making the material available online, they need to get permission, which is close to impossible, either because it's hard to track down so many rights holders (and heirs of rights holders), or, in case of commercial producers, they do not see any value in free public access and so refuse to grant permission. The most poignant moment came when Edwin van Huis (Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision) recounted a discussion with a broadcaster about whether the institute could put online some TV segment that was already on Youtube. The answer was: No! When he asked the broadcaster how he felt about his content being on Youtube the answer was: 'You can't do anything against Google'. Thus, as Paul Keller remarked, there is a perverse situation that the official repositories of culture are going to be stuck with stuff that either they cannot make accessible, or nobody cares about. All the rest will be better accessible via Youtube or piratebay. In short, it became abundantly clear that, no matter how much money you have, the attempt to solve all the legal issues first and only then start to release the material is doomed to failure. Digitization plus strict adherence to the law will not create digital archives but copyright dungeons. Most of the successful, innovative projects, it turns out, are operating in zones of varying degrees of grey. In the American example, Youtube, the grey zone is protected by corporate might (Google). In the European example, piratebay, the grey zone is sustained by mass civil disobedience. I suspect that the grey zones will not stay grey for ever. Sooner or later, the basic framework in which they will operate be will be defined. Google will have settled all the law suits against Youtube and p2p providers will becomes mainstream (keep an eye on mininova....). However, it seems equally save to predict that the new framework will look considerably different from what it is now, reshaped by the sheer force social reality. But by then, the official cultural repositories will have wasted a huge amount of money by building systems of restriction and a generation of culturally-interested citizens will have learned to look elsewhere to find the material they care about. This is already the case. As many nettimers know, ubu.com is, by far, the best archive on the audio-visual heritage of the Western avant-garde art, far better than, say, what the Moma or any other major institution offers. And this on a operating budget, as Kenneth Goldsmith explained, of $50/month. Ubuweb runs on volunteer work and its own growing reputation. This is already the de-facto official archive of the avant-garde and receiving material from foundations. The point is not that you can do everything for free, but getting rid of the crippling overhead of copyright creates tremendous freedom and energies to create resources that people actually like and use. [1] http://www.ecommons.eu --- http://felix.openflows.com ----------------------------- out now: *|Manuel Castells and the Theory of the Network Society. Polity, 2006 *|Open Cultures and the Nature of Networks. Ed. Futura/Revolver, 2005 # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at kein.org From sunil at mahiti.org Fri Apr 18 07:38:52 2008 From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham) Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:38:52 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Info-communism? Ownership and freedom in the digital economy Message-ID: <1208484532.5579.13.camel@sunil-laptop> Info-communism? Ownership and freedom in the digital economy Milton Mueller Abstract This paper takes a new look at the debate over commons and property in information and communications. It warns against recreating the old communist-capitalist ideological divide by framing the movement for informational commons as "info-communist." The spectre of communism haunts the movement because of an unresolved ideological tension in its ethical and philosophical foundations. The case for free software and open information contains both deontological appeals to the virtues of sharing, and consequentialist arguments against the growing intrusiveness of the institutional and technological mechanisms used to enforce exclusivity in the digital economy. The paper argues that the deontological case is a dead end that leads to info-communism. The strongest case for open access and freedom in information and communications is grounded in a liberalism that takes maximizing individual freedom as its objective and relies on creative complementarities between property and commons regimes as means to that end. Full Text: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2058/1956 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20080418/895456c3/attachment.html From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Sat Apr 19 10:23:24 2008 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 10:23:24 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Moser Baer in copyright trouble Message-ID: <908adbd0804182153k472a0879l80c462cc2239d553@mail.gmail.com> http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage_c.php?leftnm=10&autono=320546 Press Trust Of India / Bangalore April 19, 2008 The Supreme Court has sought reply from digital media technology major Moser Baer India on charges of copyright infringement on various Tamil movies. A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhan has sought explanation from the multinational as to why a petition filed by it in the Delhi High Court should not be transferred to the Madras High Court, as sought by a Chennai-based firm, Movie Land. Movie Land through its proprietor K P Ravichandran alleged that Moser Baer had been distributing many Tamil films through its network without its mandatory permission. It also claimed that it had the exclusive copyright of many Tamil films from the respective copyright holders for distributing them in south India by making CDs and DVDs. From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Sat Apr 19 12:21:15 2008 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:21:15 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] DoT terminates ISP licences of 35 firms Message-ID: <908adbd0804182351q3f359d70t1e3a805f3ee86ee0@mail.gmail.com> http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/04/19/stories/2008041951450400.htm Back DoT terminates ISP licences of 35 firms Move aimed at weeding out non-serious players There are still more than 100 licence holders who have not started offering services even after five years of getting the licences. This has affected Internet penetration. Thomas K Thomas New Delhi, April 18 In a bid to weed out non-serious players from the Internet sector, the Department of Telecom has terminated the licences of 35 companies, which had not started their services despite repeated reminders. As per the ISP licence norms, operators are required to start service within two years of getting the licence. Those who have got the boot include Discovery Infoways, Q-Net Infosystems, Netconnect (India), Infinity.com and KTV Net Pvt Ltd. Most of these companies had taken the licence when the Government was not charging any entry fee. The DoT has sent termination notices to other non-functional ISPs as well. The move is in line with DoT's objective to bring large players into the Internet sector. Liberal norms The Government had initially set highly liberal entry norms for ISPs due to which 770 companies took licences. While only 275 ISPs started services, 397 licence holders quit, after the Government announced an exit policy. However, there are still more than 100 licence holders who have not started offering services, even after five years of getting the licences. Therefore, the growth of the Internet user-base has been sluggish, with the Government missing broadband targets for the last two years. Entry fee In order to discourage non-serious players from taking a licence, DoT has imposed an entry fee and an annual licence fee on Net service providers. The DoT has also scrapped district level ISP category to encourage operators at the national and State levels. The telecom regulator has also suggested taking strong measures to improve the ISP segment. 'Mere numbers no good' "A number of other countries have large number of Internet operators. But having just mere numbers is of no use if they don't start service. "Most ISPs in India are not contributing to the growth of the Internet segment, and that is the reason the number of Internet users has not grown, as we would have liked even after so many years. "Our aim is to promote serious players in the sector, who will help us achieve our national goals," said a DoT official. Despite the large number of ISPs in the country, more than 90 per cent of the 10 million Internet subscribers are owned by the top 4 operators. (c) Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu Business Line From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Sat Apr 19 12:28:18 2008 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:28:18 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Drug firms in a fix over govt`s new pricing plan Message-ID: <908adbd0804182358y69a2721y923b5b7a6a77de5d@mail.gmail.com> http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage_c.php?leftnm=10&autono=320556 Drug firms in a fix over govt`s new pricing plan Joe C Mathew / New Delhi April 19, 2008 Multinational pharmaceutical firms planning to introduce patent-protected medicines in the domestic market may find it difficult to price their products at will. A government committee is looking at going beyond mere economic considerations and recommend an essentiality-linked pricing structure, it is learnt. A government committee is looking at going beyond mere economic considerations and recommend an essentiality-linked pricing structure, it is learnt. The move may upset the industry's plans as it favours the system of reference pricing under which the Indian prices will be an average of the prices at which the multinational firms sell the same product in developing nations with similar economic level or purchasing capacities. Experts have already warned against such a system and advocated the need to consider the "essentiality" factor. According to the experts who were part of a recent conference organised by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), reference price system may not truly reflect the purchasing power of the patients of that country. They caution about the possibility of the companies putting high maximum retail price even in low-income countries with country-specific agreements to sell the medicine at discounted rates. "I would not support a reference pricing system where you pick up the prices of five countries on the same economic level and arrive at an average price. These prices may not be indicative of the actual purchasing capacity of the patients of that country," said Richard Laing, medical officer (policy, access and rational use), World Health Organisation. "There are several methods to fix the prices of medicines. All OECD (Organisation for Economic Coopeartion and Development) countries, except the US, regulate patented medicine prices. The Australian model, where a Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) evaluates the merit of each new medication before assigning it a price, perhaps has much to offer. While marketing approval for the drug is given by the drug regulator, the prices of the medicines are recommended by the PBAC," Laing added. According to experts, Germany is another country where prices of patented medicines are decided on the basis of the therapeutic importance of the medicine. "This is hugely unpopular with the industry as many new drugs do have effective alternatives in that country and the authority may not approve high prices for such medicines," said an expert. The official committee, set up by the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, is in the process of identifying the best model for the country. The committee, which has gone through the price regulatory systems in countries like Germany, Canada and South Africa, is scheduled to meet on April 29. The timing of the meeting is also significant as an interministerial committee headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is expected to take a final view on the new national pharma policy, which includes a suggestion for a price control mechanism for patented medicines. From shamnadbasheer at yahoo.co.in Mon Apr 21 18:18:26 2008 From: shamnadbasheer at yahoo.co.in (Shamnad Basheer) Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:48:26 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Symposium on the Challenges to India's Patent Regime | NLSIU, Bangalore In-Reply-To: <908adbd0804182351q3f359d70t1e3a805f3ee86ee0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <978438.84213.qm@web94303.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Dear Daya, This is your second diatribe against me. I let the first one go —as I was not interested in dignifying your rant with a response. And besides you had ended your first malicious attack by suggesting that you wanted to “throw up”. I sincerely hoped that the “throwing up” would have expelled the toxicity and negativity from your system . But I was sadly mistaken. Your harsh tone in this second round of personal attacks force me to respond in this manner. If you claim to be an academic interested in “facts”, then you must go out and seek them before jumping to conclusions and letting your misplaced emotions get the better of you. Firstly, the Novartis case was in the Madras High Court —and not the Karnataka High Court, as you state in your post below. This small mistake does not really impact the outcome of our debate, but I’ve noticed a series of such mistakes in all your earlier posts on the Mashelkar controversy. See and , where your rhetorical sermons include inaccuracies such as the fact that I was based at Rutgers University, that Dr Menon hails from Bhopal etc etc. All this causes one to think that you are just “shoddy” and do not bother investigating and getting your facts right. Secondly, and more importantly, contrary to what you suggest in your tryingly long winded posts, Mashelkar’s mandate was not to examine the TRIPS compatibility of section 3(d). Rather, it was to examine the TRIPS compatibility of a provision advocated by the Left Parties (who, as you know, are part of the ruling coalition in India) that would have completely excluded patentability for all pharmaceutical derivatives. The difference between section 3(d) and the proposed amendment that the Left Parties wanted to bring in is this: Under section 3(d), a derivative of an existing pharmaceutical substance would merit a patent, if it demonstrated a significant enhancement in “efficacy” over and above the earlier known pharmaceutical substance. Under the proposed amendment, no “derivate” would gain patent protection, whether or not it demonstrated increased efficacy. I argued in the report (commissioned by the Intellectual Property Institute, UK [IPI] and funded by Interpat) that the proposed amendment is not in compliance with TRIPS. And I still continue to believe this to be the case, and have not seen any literature to suggest otherwise. However, I have always consistently maintained that section 3(d) is compatible with TRIPS. I did so in 2005, much before the Mashelkar Committee was even constituted. If you’re interested in this “fact”, then see this article of mine published in the first issue of the IJLT . Also, when your time permits, please see a more recent paper , which discusses the Novartis case at length and includes a section on TRIPS compatibility (I have revised this paper since then and am happy to send you a copy, if you wish). To this extent, claiming that the TRIPS analysis in my report influenced the Novartis case is downright stupid and reeks of ignorance. Kamal Nath, the commerce minister was opposed to this amendment proposed by the Left Parties (i.e. to exclude all derivatives from patent protection, whether or not they demonstrated increased efficacy) and took the easy way out by suggesting that the issue be referred to a committee. Unfortunately, rather than asking the really important question of whether or not such an amendment would be in national interest, the committee’s mandate was limited to “TRIPS compatibility”. In other words, would such a proposed amendment be in compliance with TRIPS? As Graham Dutfield rightly noted sometime back on this list, this is non sensical and a bit like putting the cart before the horse. Logically, India ought to have figured out what’s good for her national interest, and then got around to deciding how to fit this solution within TRIPS. But the government wasn't interested in a serious debate here—they were opposed to this provision right from the start and all they wanted was to stall the process. And what better way to stall than to appoint a committee. The irony of course is that of the 5 committee members selected, none were TRIPS experts. The committee had only two lawyers (Dr Menon and Dr Sharma), neither of whom were known for their IP scholarship, much less their expertise on TRIPS. As for the other 3 committee members, including Dr Mashelkar who headed this committee, they weren’t even lawyers—they were scientists!! And this committee was charged with the arduous task of stepping into the shoes of a WTO panel and deciding whether or not a proposed amendment would violate a highly contentious international legal instrument! It’s not that we lacked the requisite talent in India. The country did have fine academics, such as Dr NS Gopalakrishnan, known for their IP and TRIPS expertise. And it’s a shame that they weren’t involved. Of course, if you lived upto the values of a true academic, you might have done your homework well and uncovered all of this. As opposed to completely missing the boat and wrongly assuming that this was about section 3(d). If you’re now interested in familiarising yourself with the “facts”, I have detailed most of these arguments in my blog, SpicyIP. See this link for all posts related to the Mashelkar controversy (if the URL does not resolve, please cut and paste this on your browser). Thirdly, if you had the patience to dig deeper, you might have taken a more nuanced view on this controversy. For one, “bias” has to be judged with respect to several factors, and not just the funding source. I have maintained this TRIPS conclusion even outside of this specific report. And I sincerely believe this to be the correct conclusion even today, as I haven’t seen any convincing analysis to the contrary. More importantly, I was commissioned to do a second report for the IPI (funded by Interpat again) and this went against the interests of big pharma, as it completely rubbished the argument that Article 39.3 mandated data exclusivity. If you’re interested, I have detailed all of these factors that militate against the notion of “bias” in this specific blog entry here . Most of my works (outside of this report) have attempted to present a balanced and issue-based perspective on pharma patent issues. And my blog postings are reflective of this too. Some of my conclusions end up favouring big pharma and some favour public health activists. And I sincerely believe that that's a great place for an academic to be in—-i.e. not to be seen taking sides. But perhaps I’m naïve and wrong. In a deeply polarised world, people love to see things only in black or white. Reflective perhaps of George Bush’s “either you’re with us or against us” attitude. And taking the middle ground on some of these issues effectively means that you’re constantly attacked by both camps for not having chosen the “right” side. Of course, this is not to say that industry sponsored research does not come with its share of problems. Since this controversy, which affected me quite deeply, I’ve gone through most of the literature on sponsorship bias. I have to come to appreciate, that even if funding does not “factually” impact one’s outcome,, there is a strong prima facie presumption that it does. Particularly when it relates in some way to pharmaceuticals. I’ve therefore decided to never accept industry funding again, as I can ill afford to waste all this valuable time in rebutting this strong presumption by calling upon folks to dig deeper into the facts. A friend of mine states that, at worst, he would accuse me of naivete. And I think he is right. When asked by the Intellectual Property Institute (IPI), a leading IP think tank in the UK if I was interested in investigating this TRIPS issue, my enthusiasm got the better of me and blinded me to the fact that industry sponsorship would mar the sanctity of the findings. After all, I was just beginning to set my foot in the world of academia and this was only my second commissioned report (unfortunately, the first report, dealing with the compulsory licensing regime in India and commissioned by the JPO was never made public. I have finally got their consent to make this available in a book—which will hopefully be out sometime at the end of this year). Being a senior academic and claiming to be a fellow Indian, there were far more constructive ways in which you could have handled this. Yet to chose to mount deeply vicious attacks against me. Almost suggesting that I should never again be invited to any conference dealing with patent issues!! In fact, from your previous participation on this list, I notice that you’ve become something of an expert on personal attacks. You’ve taken shots at very respectable IP scholars, including Fred Abbot and Jerome Reichman--scholars that some of us hold in the highest regard. I appreciate that some of my comments to you border on the personal too. However, I hope that list readers (particularly some of my good friends on this list who’ve been discussing your emails with me) will forgive me for stooping to your level to give you a bit of your own “medicine” back--perhaps appropriate, given that the controversy we discuss relates to pharmaceuticals. You bemoan the fact that “life can be quite tough”. Unfortunately, mounting personal vitriolic attacks against everyone in sight is not going to make it better for you. Dig deep into ancient Indian scriptures and you will find that “life” itself is not problematic or tough—-it all depends on how we “perceive” it. Interestingly, you will also find that your name “daya” means compassion/kindness—-a very far cry from what your emails make you out to be. Let’s hope that you begin to correct that impression in the days to come. Warm wishes, Shamnad From: Daya Shanker Date: April 15, 2008 10:30:35 AM GMT+05:30 To: "Pranesh Prakash" , "NLS IP" , "Commons Law" , "Reader List" , ip-health at lists.essential.org, HEALTHGAP at LISTSERV.CRITPATH.ORG Subject: [Ip-health] Re: [Commons-Law] Symposium on the Challenges to India’s Patent Regime | NLSIU, Bangalore | April 12 & 13 Dear Pranesh I fully understand and in fact appreciate your advocacy for inclusiveness. But do we talk about inclusiveness when we discuss monopolization through patenting and other instruments such as copyrights? How did patenting became an issue in the Indian context? Is it based on the independent decision arrived at by sovereign countries in the interest of their citizens? Was the TRIPS Agreement part of an outcome of sovereign negotiations? The TRIPS Agreement is not an agreement if you examine it closely. Its interpretation is not an independent interpretation if you again examine closely. We are witnessing that in the case of Thailand, Brazil, South Africa and even India. How many countries are free to even interpret provisions of the TRIPS Agreement? Try to count them and if you could tell us their names, that would be wonderful. The last instance of the TRIPS Amendment where each and every word and comma and full stop proposed by developing countries was removed and export was added as one of the patenting rights does not appear to be an outcome of inclusiveness.  Some of these issues I have discussed in my paper Access to Medicines, Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on Public Health, and Developing Countries in International Treaty Negotiations apparently published in the Indian Journal of Law and Technology, National Law School University, Bangalore and as per the information given to me by Thomas the reference is 2 INDIAN J. L. & TECH 8 (2006)(since I have not received the hard copy, I cannot say more than this).  Isn't the whole issue of patenting monopolization not an outcome of international subjugation and to put it more brutally international slavery? Where does the issue of inclusiveness come into the picture? Coming to Shamnad Basheer, he is not the first person engaged by the Western pharmaceutical industry to write their pamphlets. We had Ameer Attaran before him and in the same University and possibly the same institute. He produced exactly the same literature. His articles were published in Lancet and JAMA (Amir Attaran and Les Gillespie White, Do Patents for Antiretroviral Drugs Constrain Access to AIDS Treatment in Africa, 286 JAMA 1886, 1886-92 (2001)) and you name the journals with impact factor, he was there. He was appointed in the Harvard University for the sole purpose of attaching the Harvard brand against his name and we were fed his paper as a great research at Harvard University. His salary was paid by Africa fights Malaria, a conservative institution financed by Western industry. It was not that the Harvard University was ashamed of him. But normally they do not employ people without some good publications. The paper was a plagiarized version of Les Gillespie White financed by the World Intellectual Property Organization. It was not even the original work of Amir Attaran. Amir Attaran is right now Associate Professor at Ottawa University along with Daniel Gervais. Writing pamphlets does pay. I have recently seen the name of Shamnad Basheer as visiting Associate Professor at some American University. As I mentioned, writing pamphlet does pay. Life is otherwise quite tough. We have so many other people extremely close to pharmaceutical industry. We have Patricia Danzon. She is professor at the Wharton Business School. When she got the job she had just one book published by the American Enterprise Institute. Did I make my objection regarding Shamnad Basheer clear? Chan Park had done the wonderful work in Novartis case. I happen to know a little more than Chan Park regarding intellectual property law and the politics of international negotiations. People like Shamnad Basheer, may be very intelligent person but they do not bring respectability to any institution or any organization. They get some appointments. They get some invitation to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund but their presence in any conference brings more of a disrepute to the conference rather than any inclusiveness. I do not feel happy writing anything against a fellow Indian but somebody has to tell the facts. Daya Shanker At 01:38 AM 14/04/2008, Pranesh Prakash wrote: Dear Mr. Shanker, I understand why you may have misgivings about our invitation of Mr. Basheer, but I believe your misgivings are unnecessary on two grounds: that our conference is meant to be inclusive; and that the wrongdoing you assert on Mr. Basheer's part is not a given. Firstly, the objective of this symposium is not to push forward a particular agendum, whether pro-pharma, anti-pharma, pro-IP or anti-IP, but to have broad-based discussions on the various sorts of changes and challenges that India's current patent regime is facing. While this might involve coming to a consensus as to solutions (and that would be welcomed), in our pragmatism we understand that a consensus might not be arrived at, and are ready to face that. The important thing is to explore issues, and all possible ways of addressing those issues. The benefits of one approach over another is not something that we wish to push during this symposium. This, I believe, is reflected by the wide variety of views and opinions that the speakers represent. Thus, simply put, Mr. Basheer's "close association" with the pharmaceutical industry does not hamper his participation in this symposium. In fact, to get a variety of views, such a association (if it did indeed exist) would even be preferable. The pharmaceutical industry is after all a stakeholder, just as the poverty-stricken medicine-less patient is a stakeholder. The relative weights of their stakeholding (and the issue of India being socialist) is not something I wish to get into here. Secondly, Mr. Basheer's "close association" with the pharmaceutical industry is not a given. As he has pointed out (and Chan Park has agreed), his report, part of which was copied without the necessary acknowledgement, by the Mashelkar Committee, was based on solid research and was substantiated. While we may disagree with the conclusions that he arrived at, the fact that it was well-argued is not, I believe, at dispute. The dispute is based on the questionable assumption that the source of funding of his research directly or indirectly affected his views and biased his conclusions. There is nothing to support that assumption, especially given that he has held those views even outside of that report.  Funding of research and "mercenerisation" of research are different, and I see no evidence to Mr. Basheer's research being the latter.  In any case, even Mr. Chan accepts that.  Additionally, in case of doubt, I believe that he ought be given the benefit of the same.  I hope you agree.  Please note that these are my personal views, and not that of the organising committee.  Finally, I must thank you for taking enough interest in the Symposium to respond! Regards, Pranesh On 4/11/08, Daya Shanker < daya.shanker at deakin.edu.au[1]> wrote: Dear Pranesh It appears to be a very nice group of people but I do not see why Shamnad Basheer should be there. Didn't we discuss his role during the Karnataka High Court's decision in Novartis and his close association with the pharmaceutical industry? If a research output is based on the payment made by the industry, it destroys total sense of ethics and morality and definitely academic nature of the conference unless it is to provide legitimacy to such research. I have nothing personal against him or anybody but any mercenerisation of research destroys the total fabric of academic morality. daya shanker At 07:07 AM 9/04/2008, Pranesh Prakash wrote: Dear All, National Law School of India Review, the bi-annual journal of the National Law School, Bangalore is organising the First NLSIR Symposium on the "Challenges to India's Patent Regime". The Symposium is being held from 12th – 13th April (Saturday and Sunday) at the NLSIU campus in Nagarbhavi, Bangalore and is intended to promote healthy debate and discussion amongst all the stakeholders involved. The Symposium has been structured to discuss the cutting edge issues relating to the Indian patent regime. Over four sessions, it looks to cover the theoretical justifications for patents, India's role as a country which is a signatory to TRIPS, the contentious issue of pharmaceutical patents and finally an analysis of possible judicial attitudes towards patent law and legislation in India. The Symposium brings together judges of the Supreme Court, patent attorneys from the USA, senior advocates, technical experts, ideologues and activists to facilitate constructive discussion of the issues set out and the best way forward for India's patent law. Prominent speakers include – Judiciary Justice AR Lakshmanan, Chairman Law Commission of India; Justice PP Naolekar, Judge Supreme Court of India; Justice Ravindra Bhat, Judge Delhi High Court; Justice DV Shylendra Kumar, Judge Karnataka High Court Academics Dr. Anil Gupta, IIM Ahmedabad; Shamnad Basheer, Oxford IP Research Centre; Srividhya Raghavan, Oklahoma University; T. Ramakrishna, NLSIU; Sudhir Krishnaswamy, NLSIU Bar Feroz Ali Khader, Advocate High Court of Madras; Aditya Sondhi, Advocate Karnataka High Court; Vinay Aravind, Poovayya & Poovayya Public Interest Leena Menghaney, Access Campaign Manager - India, MSF; Mr. Gopa Kumar, CENTAD; Dr. Anand Grover, Director, Lawyers' Collective For registration, please contact Apurva Rai, +919886208285.   For more details visit – http://www.nlsir.in/symposium.htm[2] or contact Arghya Sengupta, +919886023232. Regards, Pranesh Prakash _______________________________________________ Ip-health mailing list Ip-health at lists.essential.org http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/ip-health Did you know? You can CHAT without downloading messenger. Go to http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php/ From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Tue Apr 22 09:12:58 2008 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:12:58 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Fwd: [A2k] Christopher Caldwell in the Financial Times: Humility and Harry Potter In-Reply-To: <673D5802-15F8-46A4-AEC0-FFAEF8CB2848@keionline.org> References: <673D5802-15F8-46A4-AEC0-FFAEF8CB2848@keionline.org> Message-ID: <908adbd0804212042sdf3bb00w70c6ca04574e2122@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Thiru Balasubramaniam Date: Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 4:56 PM Subject: [A2k] Christopher Caldwell in the Financial Times: Humility and Harry Potter To: a2k discuss list http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/866b4288-0dac-11dd-b90a-0000779fd2ac.html Humility and Harry Potter By Christopher Caldwell Published: April 19 2008 03:00 | Last updated: April 19 2008 03:00 "We all know I've made enough money," said J.K. Rowling, the author, in a courtroom in New York City this week. "That's absolutely not why I'm here." It is not obvious, though, why she was there. Along with Warner Brothers Entertainment, Ms Rowling is suing RDR Books, a small, respected publisher in rural Muskegon, Michigan, to enjoin it from selling an A-to-Z guide to Ms Rowling's seven Harry Potter books. This "lexicon" would be based on an online guide compiled over the past decade by Steven Vander Ark in the hours he could spare from his job as a librarian at a Christian junior high school near Muskegon. The case has become a battle over the limits of copyright law and a window on the ties that bind celebrities to their more obsessive fans. The gravamen of Ms Rowling's and Warner Brothers' argument is clear. Mr Vander Ark's book "is not a reference book or scholarly critique", they claim, and it lacks "any originality or invention". Ms Rowling has praised Mr Vander Ark's website, but calls the book that will draw from it "wholesale theft". Her attorneys note that "Ms Rowling has allowed fans and scholars wide latitude to comment on, critique, and even create 'fan fiction' and art based on her stories". But of course, nobody in a free country requires authors' permission to comment on or critique their work. Lawyers at Stanford University Law School's Fair Use Project, who are defending Mr Vander Ark pro bono, sought to show in three days of testimony this week that the Lexicon constitutes "fair use" of Ms Rowling's work. It is a reference guide, of the sort that is familiar (and indispensable) to anyone who has taken a deeper interest in Balzac, Proust, Faulkner or Star Trek . Ms Rowling "appears to claim a monopoly on the right to publish literary reference guides and other non-academic research relating to her own fiction", according to Mr Vander Ark's lawyer. Joe Nocera, The New York Times business writer, puts it even more bluntly. He has called Ms Rowling a "copyright hog". Whether the lexicon violates "fair use" depends, according to US legal experts, on whether it is "transformative" or whether it just cribs from Ms Rowling's plot and prose. Much of the testimony missed this issue. Ms Rowling dwelt on her own plans to publish a Potter encyclopaedia, which is neither here nor there. Literary critics cannot be kept from writing about, let us say, the novels of Philip Roth on the grounds that Mr Roth swears he wants to publish a book called What My Novels Mean . The fact that Mr Vander Ark would profit from his lexicon is a red herring, too. Provided he is within the boundaries of "fair use", there is nothing illegitimate about his profiting from his work, any more than it is illegitimate that book reviewers be paid if they cite the books they review. Ms Rowling also demeaned the quality of Mr Vander Ark's book, which is legally irrelevant. Apparently some puns she was particularly proud of, including a "double allusion" in the name Remus Lupin, went over his head. She came off as condescending ("It's very difficult for someone who is not a writer to understand"), self-involved (the suit, she said, "has really decimated the demands of my creative work for the last month") and mean. Meanwhile, Mr Vander Ark's admiration for Ms Rowling's "genius" (his word) remains slavish. Although he refers to her as "Jo" on his website, the two had never met before this week. He has read the Potter books dozens of times and recently moved to England, where he has written a book about the places that inspired the Potter series. Even after Ms Rowling filed the suit against his publisher last October, he signed his online postings "still Jo's man, through and through". When asked in court this week if he still felt like a member of the "Harry Potter community", he began to sob. Whatever the court decides on legal grounds, one need only spend five minutes at Mr Vander Ark's website ( hp-lexicon.org ) to see that, on literary grounds, the idea that he is merely cribbing is nonsense. The website is highly transformative. It is a leviathan effort of research, criticism and interpretation. It is a concordance, index and bibliographical essay all in one. If the eventual book bears the slightest resemblance to it, it will be indispensable to scholars and lay Potter addicts. It gives timelines of the novels and points up inconsistencies in them. Its section on plants describes the uses and behaviour of fluxweed, honking daffodils and whomping willows, and reconstructs seven years of the "herbology" curriculum at Hogwarts. It indexes everything Ms Rowling has ever said in published interviews about her main characters. (At World Book Day in 2004, if you'd care to know, she hinted that Harry might be a relative of Godric Gryffindor, the wizard and Hogwarts founder.) It links to 137 literary essays about the Potter series from around the English-speaking world, some of them superb. It debunks hoaxes and rumours that have swirled around the series and its author. It links to bookstores. Such a site is not just a godsend to Potter addicts. It is thanks to readers such as Mr Vander Ark that Harry Potter is taken as something more than just a particularly good children's book. Celebrities and their fans exist in an awkward mutual dependence. Maybe Ms Rowling, paradoxically, is a victim of her relatively private lifestyle and her unlikely road from single motherhood to fame. She has a Hollywood star's relationship to her public, but less practice than the average Hollywood star, perhaps, in hiding impatience. She remains a writer with an admirable work ethic, a magnificent gift for characterisation and plot, and a rich and inventive vocabulary - even if the word "humility" does not figure in it. The writer is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard ------------------------------------------------------------ Thiru Balasubramaniam Geneva Representative Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) thiru at keionline.org Tel: +41 22 791 6727 Mobile: +41 76 508 0997 _______________________________________________ A2k mailing list A2k at lists.essential.org http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Tue Apr 22 09:28:59 2008 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:28:59 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] India wants traditional knowledge included in TRIPS Message-ID: <908adbd0804212058r3f7720c0udbc45d0135b38de9@mail.gmail.com> India wants traditional knowledge included in TRIPS Economy Bureau Posted online: Tuesday , April 22, 2008 at 2253 hrs New Delhi, Apr 21A joint campaign by India and Brazil with other developing countries to amend the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement so as to include the protection of 'traditional knowledge, genetic resources and folklore' is being opposed by the developed world led by countries like the US, Australia and Japan. But the first ever meeting on these three branches of intellectual property currently not covered by TRIPS held at the initiative of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in the capital today is being viewed as a sign of progress by India. N N Prasad, joint secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion said: "The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues regarding traditional knowledge, genetic resources and folklore cannot be dealt with a singular kind of thinking. Developed countries need to build a sense of confidence among developing countries who would like to see these aspects included in the Substantive Patent Law Treaty." The government has been interacting with the USPTO and the meeting today, the first such initiative by a developed country on this subject, must be applauded, Prasad stressed. "India, with a 5,000-year-old culture and tremendous bio-diversity, strongly believes in protection of traditional knowledge, genetic resources and folklore and hopes that an international consensus will build regarding this issue. India would like disclosure, prior informed consent and equitable access and benefit sharing to be included in international instruments regarding IPR. We have already created a digital knowledge library cataloguing 170,000 traditional medicines so that absence of information does not result in improper granting of patents," Prasad pointed out. "India is willing to share with its digital knowledge library on 170,000 traditional medicines with the USPTO and its European counterpart on the condition that it should not be put in the public domain," Prasad said. But the US is insisting that such a database be made public because as per its laws patents, if any such prior knowledge is in public domain, it can be cited against the patent applicant to ensure that patents are given only for completely new inventions. First secretary for Intellectual Property at the U S Embassy in New Delhi, Dominic Keating said, "Washington believes that including new disclosure requirements in IPR laws may be detrimental to innovation. In addition, it would not be an effective means to ensure prior informed consent, access to genetic resources and equitable benefit sharing." The three-day meeting that kicked off today is being attended by representatives from the Saarc nations, the World Intellectual Property Organisation and the US. The meeting is a precursor to the global Intellectual Property (IP) Day on April 26. From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Thu Apr 24 09:17:57 2008 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:17:57 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Broadcasters adopt code of ethics, sting operation to be the last resort Message-ID: <908adbd0804232047s5b83340bx5896006ab9f36751@mail.gmail.com> http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/24/stories/2008042455411200.htm Back National Broadcasters adopt code of ethics, sting operation to be the last resort Special Correspondent NEW DELHI: As an alternative to the government's attempt to regulate broadcasting through legislation, 12 leading broadcasters having 25 news channels have decided to use sting operations as the last resort. And, if a sting operation is conducted, these news broadcasters will not allow the use of sex and sleaze, narcotics and psychotropic substances or any act of violence as a means of getting a story. This commitment has been made by the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) through the 'Code of Ethics and Broadcasting Standards' it has adopted for itself. A 12-member relatively new collective, the NBA has among its members TV Today Network Ltd., NDTV Limited, Times Global Broadcasting Company Ltd., TV18 Group and Sun TV Network. Sting operations, according to the code, will be used as a tool of journalism only if the story serves an "identifiable larger public interest." Further, "news channels, will as a ground rule, ensure that sting operations are carried out only as a tool for getting conclusive evidence of wrongdoing or criminality, and that there is no deliberate alteration of visuals, or editing, or interposing done with the raw footage in a way that it also alters or misrepresents the truth or presents only a portion of the truth." As for superstitions, the code states that news channels will not broadcast any material that glorifies superstition and occultism in any manner. "In broadcasting any news about such genre, news channels will also issue public disclaimers to ensure that viewers are not misled into believing or emulating such beliefs." Impartiality Through the code, the NBA has committed itself to impartiality and objectivity in reporting, neutrality, and respect of privacy. Violence will not be glorified and the identity of victims of sexual violence will be protected. (c) Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Fri Apr 25 09:30:40 2008 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:30:40 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] =?windows-1252?q?Tourism_Ministry_reclaims_=91Incre?= =?windows-1252?q?dible_India=92_title?= Message-ID: <908adbd0804242100x52627e5ap2395d3e8eea5c871@mail.gmail.com> http://www.indianexpress.com/printerFriendly/301224.html Tourism Ministry reclaims 'Incredible India' title Amitabh Sinha Posted online: Friday, April 25, 2008 at 2209 hrs IST New Delhi, April 24 The Tourism Ministry has regained its control over the 'Incredible India' title for its bi-monthly magazine after a publisher withdrew its claims over it. The battle between the ministry and Durga Das Publications over the title ended on Wednesday with the latter withdrawing its appeal against a recent order by the DCP (Licensing) against its claim. The publishing house has given its no-objection in writing to the ministry and the Registrar of Newspapers in India (RNI) in this regard. It will also withdraw its petition from the High Court seeking to restrain the ministry from publishing the magazine with the title "Incredible India". The tussle had started last year after a rival publishing house was declared the winner of the bidding process to decide who would publish the magazine on behalf of the ministry. Durga Das had been publishing the magazine from 2003 to 2007, but last year it lost out to a Mumbai-based company Mediascope Publicitas. Durga Das had moved court, seeking to restrain the ministry from awarding the contract on the grounds that the title was registered in its name. The Law Ministry, whose advice was also sought, had come to the conclusion that Durga Das had committed a criminal offence that had caused losses to the Tourism Ministry. From mayur.suresh at gmail.com Fri Apr 25 19:21:31 2008 From: mayur.suresh at gmail.com (Mayur) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:21:31 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Invite to a workshop on the Judicial 90's In-Reply-To: <4811DEA3.8000205@gmail.com> References: <4811DEA3.8000205@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4def3c470804250651w6c56aedx70cde569f235e6f5@mail.gmail.com> Please find attached an invitation to the Judicial 90's workshop on the 10th and 11th of May 2008, organized by Alternative Law Forum and Christ College of Law, Bangalore. Apologies for cross posting. Warm regards, Mayur for ALF __________ Alternative Law Forum 4, Ground Floor 3rd Cross Vasanthanagar Bangalore 560 052 Ph: +91 80 2235 6845/ 2237 0028 The Alternative Law Forum and Christ College of Law, Bangalore Invite you to a Workshop on *The Judicial Nineties* May 10th & 11th, 2008 at the Christ College of Law, Christ College Campus, Hosur Road, Bangalore 560029 There has been a sense that the judiciary has increasingly narrowed the field on issues of socio economic rights and distributive justice. Often, this is referred to as the Court's 'conservative turn', but there is little that is said beyond this, except to imply its direct linkage to the post-liberalization period in Indian history. One of the important tasks of the contemporary is to provide an account of this shift within a larger political economy narrative that seeks to locate the precise manners in which these changes are taking place via the emergence of a judicial sovereignty that does not merely adjudicate any longer but actively produces the context and conditions for a free-market friendly environment. Ranging from questions of rehabilitation to the violent reordering of urban space, the judiciary has played an active role in redefining ideas of access and entitlement. While the eighties were marked by the emergence of 'social action litigation' that sought to radically redefine ideas of entitlement and equality, by the mid-nineties, most social movements who relied on using the courts as spaces of social justice were repeatedly disappointed by the complicity of the courts with the neo liberal project. All the extremely violent developments and transitions that are taking place in this period are unfolding very much within the law, backed by new regimes of property, and often in the name of the law. Thus the violent reordering of cities in India has seen encroachers removed to restore the land to the legal owners, and water privatized after lawful agreements are entered into between the government and private parties. The Court has proactively determined socio-economic policy and in doing so has re-written the idea of the social. In older formulations like Partha Chatterjee's idea of the political there was an acknowledgement of the porous spaces between the legal/illegal that allowed people to participate in democratic politics. This is effectively being destroyed by the judiciary and along with it the compact of political society. There is a newfound romance of the idea of the legal and with it, new forms of illegality and subjectivities that are being produced by the Court. In this space there is very little room for the kind of negotiations that characterized the ways in which large sections of the population accessed basic services. Perhaps talking of the complicity of the courts with the neo liberal project is too generous a reading, and instead we should say that the law and judiciary are the neo liberal project. If this is so then is there a need to re-evaluate the relationship between social movements and the judicial process – do we now abandon the site of legal intervention? Registration: If you are interested in attending the Workshop, please send an email to Aarti Mundkur at aarti at altlawforum.org or call her at 080-22356845 Schedule May 10, 2008 Welcome: John Thaliath, Christ College of Law 9:30 am – 9:40 am Introduction: Mayur Suresh, Alternative Law Forum 9:40 am – 10:00 am Keynote: Upendra Baxi 10:00 am – 11:00 am Tea Break (11:00 am – 11:15 am) Supreme, But not Infallible 11:15 am – 1:30 pm Speakers: Aditya Nigam, Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Sitaramam Kakarala, Usha Ramanathan Lunch (1:30 pm - 2:30 pm) Judicial Imagination and the City Beautiful 2:30 pm - 4:30pm Speakers: Nivedita Menon, Awadhendhra Sharan, Shrimoyee Ghosh Tea Break (4:30 – 4:45 pm) Law of Terror and Terror of Law 4:45 pm – 6:45 pm Speakers: Nitya Ramakrishnan, Ujjwal Kumar Singh, D. Nagasaila May 11, 2008 Keynote A.G. Noorani 9:30 am – 10:30 am Tea Break (10:45 – 11:00) Law and Labour in the Time of Global Capital 11:00 am – 1:00 pm Speakers: Mukul Sinha, NGR Prasad, Mihir Desai Lunch (1:00 pm - 2:00 pm) Contestations & Power: The Court and Social Justice 2:00 pm - 4:30pm Speakers: Shankar Gopalakrishnan, Arun Thiruvengadam, K. Balagopal Tea Break (4:30 pm – 4:45 pm) Concluding Discussion: Initiated by Prof. Upendra Baxi 4:45 pm – 5:30pm Film Screening: The Advocate, by Deepa Dhanraj 5:45 pm – 7:45 pm Dinner at Venue 8:00 pm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20080425/0cb8a7bc/attachment.html From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Sat Apr 26 09:21:18 2008 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:21:18 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Drug Controller to check patents before giving approvals Message-ID: <908adbd0804252051q7ad35701lf1e0551f401cb8e6@mail.gmail.com> http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/04/26/stories/2008042651181000.htm Back Drug Controller to check patents before giving approvals Protecting innovations through strong intellectual rights regime "We are putting a system in place in which the patent holders can inform us of the patented drugs so that DCGI can take cognisance of such patents while giving drug approvals." Our Bureau New Delhi, April 25 In a bid to protect patents owned by pharmaceutical companies, the Drug Controller General (India) is putting a system in place which will enable it to take note of intellectual rights before giving drug approvals. Addressing a seminar organised by the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI), Dr Surinder Singh, Drugs Controller General (India), said, "We recognise the importance of protecting innovations through a strong IPR regime and, therefore, we are putting a system in place in which the patent holders can inform us of the patented drugs so that DCGI can take cognisance of such patents while giving drug approvals." The pharma industry has been seeking stricter patent laws in order to encourage innovation. Mr D.G. Shah, Secretary General, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, cautioned everyone about the implementation and any further amendment to the Patent Act as "one must keep in mind the various stages of economic development in our country." Mr N.N. Prasad, Joint Secretary, Industrial Policy and Promotion, elaborated on the process of law making in India and mentioned that the Act was passed in 2005, and it is barely three-and-a-half years old. "One has, therefore, to be a bit patient and give some time for the law to be tested in the courts. Clarity on this will emerge in due course," Mr Prasad said. He also elaborated on the modernisation of the patent system in India. The Government is further investing over Rs 200 crore in this project which includes recruiting and training patent examiners and raising awareness across the country on IPR, he said. Dr Heinz Hammann, Corporate Director-Patents, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Germany, highlighted the need to consider equity in international trade relations vis-a-vis TRIP and WTO matters. Mr Shyamal Ghosh, Chairman Data Security Council of India, stressed the need for the data protection and suggested that education, engagement of the stakeholders, enacting appropriate legislation and creating enforcement framework would be essential while considering matters related to data protection. (c) Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu Business Line From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Sat Apr 26 09:33:56 2008 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:33:56 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Church cracks down on pulpit plagiarism Message-ID: <908adbd0804252103ja125594t8e46493fdf300043@mail.gmail.com> http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/26/stories/2008042656832200.htm Back Front Page Church cracks down on pulpit plagiarism WARSAW: There's a new commandment for Polish priests: Thou shall not lift. The Roman Catholic Church in this nation has published a new book that tells priests how to find inspiration in already published sermons without breaking the law by lifting passages verbatim. The book, To Plagiarise or Not to Plagiarise? is an attempt to set boundaries in the wake of pulpit plagiarism claims that have hit not just Catholic clerics in Poland but ministers from other Christian denominations in the United States. Temptation is just the click of a mouse away as more and more churches post their sermons online, not to mention the availability of books and church-sponsored magazines that provide inspiration for sermons. There is a thin line between drawing inspiration and lifting the text outright, said the Reverend Wieslaw Przyczyna, one of the book's editors. In Charlotte, North Carolina, the Rev. E. Glenn Wagner, a former senior evangelical pastor at Calvary Church, admitted lifting parts of sermons and resigned in 2004. Also, the Rev. Robert Hamm, the former senior minister at the United Church of Christ in Keene, New Hampshire, admitted to similar accusations and resigned. Paul Hasser of the Centre for the Liturgy of St. Louis University in Missouri said he remembered seeing priests reading their Sunday sermons directly from a book when he was a boy. "That bothered no one then," said Mr. Hasser, who runs the centre's sermon website. But with the quick dissemination of sermons on the Internet, and the involvement of copyright law, times have changed. Now, in Poland, a priest caught using a plagiarised sermon can face stiff fines or even as long as three years in prison, though no one has actually been charged or sentenced. Rev. Przyczyna, a sermon expert, said that existing sermons can be used — "but according to rules" that forbid a word-for-word citation without properly acknowledging their source. "You need to give a clear signal: The text is not mine," he said. — AP (c) Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu From jeebesh at sarai.net Sat Apr 26 13:28:57 2008 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:58:57 +0500 Subject: [Commons-Law] Kerala shuts windows, schools to use only Linux Message-ID: <415C18C8-6BF2-42D4-B497-A151558CAFBD@sarai.net> http://www.indianexpress.com/story/280323.html Kerala shuts windows, schools to use only Linux Rajeev P I Posted online: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 at 2315 hrs Print Email KOCHI, MARCH 4: Richard M Stallman—global free software guru, VS Achuthanandan’s darling and almost a freewheeling adviser of sorts to the Kerala Government—may now have more reasons to break out into that jig that he abruptly did while being given a somberly reverential welcome in Kerala a few weeks ago. Related Stories Richest MP on a different plane altogetherKerala MP admits he called pilot ‘glorified driver’, Minister Patel asks both sides to cool offPilots’ body threatens to blacklist MPKerala CPM sees red as Buddha praises ChurchMarad case: Bail to 106 accused Ad Links Students Federation of India Distance Education in India Download Software Kerala is all set to become the first state in the country to completely banish Microsoft and allow only GNU/Linux free software to be used in the mandatory IT test at the state SSLC examinations that half a million students will appear for from next week. Till last year, they could take the exam using either free software or the Microsoft platform. Not anymore. A few weeks ago, the Government formally ordered that only free Linux- based software should be used for IT education in high schools, using new the Linux text books developed by State Council for Educational Research and Training and the Free Software Foundation of India. The hardline Left’s familiar anti-MNC, anti-proprietory planks apart, another major plus of abandoning Microsoft, claim state IT Mission officials, is plainly the cost factor. “Going for a massive Windows- based infrastructure cost a lot. Linux can bundle all applications with the operating system facilitating a single installation kit”. The logistics for making Kerala the country’s Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) destination—one of Achuthanandan’s pet Red obsessions— may be daunting, but the state is coping with it. Since last September, some 15 lakh students have been busy training on or migrating to free software on 40,000 computers put up in 2,832 high schools watched over by over 60,000 IT trained school teachers (some 86 private training institutions train the teachers) besides 161 master trainers and 5,600 school IT coordinators. “We checked. It’s the world’s biggest mobilisation of its kind,” says K Anwar Sadath, executive director of the state government’s IT at Schools mission. Every high school in Kerala, including the over a thousand government- run ones, will be wired to high-speed broadband Internet by this July, which will be another first in India. All, of course, will use nothing but free software. “We are now moving from IT education to IT- enabled education in our schools, using only free software,” asserts Education Minister M A Baby. When Stallman, who fathered the GNU project and developed text editor Emacs, flew down to Kerala for the first time in 2001—in his old patched jeans, long beard, free flowing hair and crumpled T-shirt—and told the curious who hadn’t heard of him in Thiruvananthapuram that he was, really, “Saint iGNUcious of the church of Emacs”, the then Congress-led Government was already busy getting the state’s IT drive on keel, drawing in Intel and Microsoft. Achuthanandan, then Opposition leader, was quick to demand that both be got rid of, and launched a particularly vocal campaign against Microsoft being allowed to train Kerala school kids, calling it “exploitative”. The then A K Antony Government had not overly warmed up to Stallman, who opened Asia’s first centre of his outfit, the Free Software Foundation-India, in Thiruvananthapuram. But Achuthanandan was keen, even when CPI(M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan originally favoured the Microsoft idea. Stallman then began regularly dropping down to Kerala. Two years ago, Achuthanandan, after vainly ordering Pepsi and Coca-Cola out of the state, declared that all schools will go the FOSS way. Last year, in its state IT policy, the Left Government vowed to use only FOSS in all e-governance projects and declared it would even incentivise companies developing free software. Government departments, beginning with the state Secretariat, soon began switching from Microsoft to Linux. “There were some initial fears and some understandable resistance, but things have been smoothing out faster than we thought.” says a a senior state IT official. The migration is at various stages in key Government arms now. From lawrence at altlawforum.org Sat Apr 26 14:52:25 2008 From: lawrence at altlawforum.org (Lawrence Liang) Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:52:25 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] India Back in 301 Priority List Message-ID: ha, that time of the year..... http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Media__Entertainment_/US_places_India_and_eight_others_in_Priority_Watch_List/articleshow/2984420.cms US places India and eight others in Priority Watch List 26 Apr, 2008, 0731 hrs IST, PTI WASHINGTON: The United States has placed India, and eight other countries, on its 'Priority Watch List' for this year for failing to protect the copyrights, patents, and trademarks of American producers from piracy. "The United States continues to urge India to improve its IPR regime by providing stronger protection for patents, copyrights and trademarks, as well as protection against unfair commercial use of undisclosed test and other data generated to obtain marketing approval for pharmaceutical products," the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said in its Special 301 Report. The Special 301 Report is prepared by the USTR on adequacy and effectiveness of Intellectual Property Rights by trading partners of the United States. Apart from India, China and Russia, Argentina, Chile, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand and Venezuela have been placed in the list. Putting the countries in this list means that the US will subject them to extra scrutiny and if it decides to pursue complaints before the World Trade Organisations then economic sanctions could be imposed on these countries. "The United States encourages India to implement the WIPO Internet Treaties by strengthening its copyright laws, and to improve its IPR enforcement system by enacting and implementing an effective optical disc licensing scheme to combat optical disc piracy. Piracy remains a serious problem in India, as does trademark counterfeiting, including of pharmaceuticals and distilled spirits," the section on India of the report said. MORE PTI SK The USTR office, headed by Ambassador Susan Schwab, emphasised on the need for improvement on the areas of police action against the pirates and counterfeiters. It also stressed for expeditious judicial dispositions for copyright and trademark infringement with imposition of deterrent-level sentences for IPR infringers, and stronger border enforcement against counterfeit and pirated goods. "The US urges India to strengthen its IPR regime and stands ready to work with it on these issues during the coming year through the Trade Policy Forum and other bilateral mechanisms," it added. Forty-six countries have been placed on this year's Priority Watch List, Watch List. "Priority Watch List countries will be the subject of particularly intense engagement through bilateral discussion during the coming year," the USTR added. President of the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), a coalition of seven trade associations representing some 1900 companies, Eric Smith said "the Copyrights Industry Companies' principal concerns in India are threefold. The first of which being the inadequacy in effective criminal enforcements which are necessary to deter piracy." "The second is legislative issues such as amendments to the Indian copyright law to implement the WIPO Internet Treaties signed in 1996," he said, adding a legislation is pending for over ten years to implement those treaties. "Thirdly, the IIPA and others have urged India to adopt a law that would require the licensing of optical disc factories. This would help in ensuing that these factories do not produce pirated products," Smith said. According to IIPA statistics, the total loss in 2007 for American Copyrights was around $914 million against $752 million in 2006. The estimated losses for US Copyrights from India in business software area was $732 million in 2007; records and music at $14 million; entertainment at $130 million and books at $30 million. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20080426/65e19caf/attachment.html From bodo at mokk.bme.hu Sun Apr 27 19:19:10 2008 From: bodo at mokk.bme.hu (=?iso-8859-2?B?Qm9k8yBCYWzhenM=?=) Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 15:49:10 +0200 Subject: [Commons-Law] CFP First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture Message-ID: <025301c8a86d$7c2a7cc0$6701a8c0@stanford.edu> apologies for cross-posting, but this might be of interest for this list. b.- --------------------------------- Balazs Bodo http://www.warsystems.hu/ Fulbright Alumnus, Non-residential Fellow Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/ Budapest University of Technology, Department of Sociology and Communications Center for Media Research and Education http://mokk.bme.hu/ CALL FOR PAPERS First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture Hosted at the fourth annual iSummit , 29 July -1 August, 2008, Sapporo, Japan With submission deadline: May 3, 2008 ***** DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MAY 3 ***** Introduction The First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture presents a unique opportunity for scholars with various backgrounds, whose work contributes to the promotion or study of an emerging Free Culture, to present their research work to a multidisciplinary audience of academic peers and practitioners. It will be held in conjunction with the fourth iSummit , one of the largest annual events for the Free Culture and related movements. Our aim is to provide a platform for scholars to communicate their findings to an audience that extends beyond individual disciplines because we believe that the wider participation in the creative process (and consequently in the formation and dissemination of our modern culture) enabled by new Internet technologies, innovative legal solutions and new business models, are far-reaching and therefore deserve to be examined through the lens of multidisciplinary inquiry. The focus of the workshop will be on the presentation and critique of work in progress, and with the inclusion of both academic researchers and practitioners, so as to produce a holistic perspective on the future of a more participative, open and free information society. Workshop participants will have the chance to present their work at an event which attracts some of the world's foremost thinkers on the future of the Internet, as well as practitioners, technologists, activists and artists who help shape that future. Workshop Format The workshop will be held as a separate 'track' during the iSummit. True to its mission of promoting the study and practice of participatory action, it will include both a peer-reviewed academic research program and a practice-oriented 'demo', or 'speedgeeking' session. The academic research programme will consist of presentations in the traditional format of short talks with time for Q&A. Submissions to the academic research programme will be peer-reviewed by the programme committee, based on their academic merit, research promise and relevance to the workshop's goals and expected audience. Authors need only submit an extended abstract of the work they wish to present and not an entire paper (see 'Submission Guidelines' below). The purpose of this is to encourage the presentation of work in progress and promote a fruitful and open environment of critique and collaboration. Accepted abstracts will be published in the form of online workshop proceedings, so that the broader community has an opportunity to critique and comment. Authors whose extended abstracts are accepted for presentation will also have a chance to upload a full paper before the start of the workshop, if they so desire. Note that there will be no ideological 'litmus test' of any sort applied to submissions, i.e. all viewpoints are welcome and submissions will be judged purely on the merits and promise of the research as well as the potential for the presentation to generate interesting discussions at the workshop. Also, please note that members of the academic programme committee will be allowed to submit their own work for review but will be subject to exactly the same review criteria and appropriate safeguards will be in place to ensure the avoidance of any conflicts of interest. The demo session will be in a 'speedgeeking' or similar format (quick, informal presentations on participant laptops) and will focus on practice-oriented work that is original and relevant to the workshop's goals but is not intended for a purely academic audience and hence might not fit the criteria of a peer-reviewed submission. This may include technology/art demos, case studies, practice-oriented reports, etc. A separate committee will be in charge of organising this session. The workshop will also include opportunities for participants to discuss future directions for Commons-related research and mingle with workshop peers and with participants of the broader iSummit, in order to strengthen ties between research and practice and to allow the participants to explore cross-institutional collaboration opportunities. Also, a short presentation of the workshop's main findings will be made by members of the programme committee during the iSummit. Research Topics Topics of interest for the workshop include, but are not limited to: * Studies on the use and growth of open/free licensing models; * Critical analyses of the role of Creative Commons or similar models in promoting a free culture; * Building innovative technical, legal or business solutions and interfaces between the sharing economy and the commercial economy; * Modelling incentives, innovation and community dynamics in open collaborative peer production and in related social networks; * Economic models for the sustainability of commons-based production; * Successes and failures of open licensing; * Analyses of policies, court rulings or industry moves that influence the future of Free Culture; * Regional studies of Free Culture; * Lessons from implementations of open/free licensing and distribution models for specific communities; * Definitions of openness and freedom for different media types, users and communities; * Broader sociopolitical, legal and cultural implications of Free Culture initiatives and peer production practices. Important Dates * Submission deadline: 3 May, 2008 * Notification of acceptance: 25 May, 2008 * Workshop: 29 July - 1 August, 2008 Submission Guidelines Extended abstracts for the academic research programme should contain a clear statement of the main research question, the methods employed, central ideas, and the outcomes of the research, in addition to a description of the topic being addressed. All extended abstracts must be submitted electronically in PDF format to commons.research at gmail.com by May 3, and should be about 1000-1500 words in length. In addition, and beyond the stated size limit, in the same PDF file authors should include contact information, affiliations and a short biographical note for each author. Submission of an abstract entails a commitment that at least one author will attend the workshop to present the work in the case of acceptance. Also, authors of abstracts accepted for presentation grant the workshop organizers the right to publish their submissions in the form of online proceedings. In addition, and in accordance with general iSummit terms and conditions, submissions accepted for presentation will be automatically licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported licence, unless the authors explicitly state in their submission that they wish to opt out of this licensing agreement. We encourage authors to use said license, although decisions to opt out will be respected and will not influence the review process in any way. In any case, authors of accepted abstracts cannot opt out from the basic condition that they grant the workshop organizers the right to publish their submissions online. The same terms and conditions apply for the case where an author of an accepted abstract chooses to upload an entire paper before the workshop date for inclusion in the online proceedings. For the demo/speedgeeking session(s) it will be possible to register interest on site at the workshop, but potential presenters are encouraged to express their interest in advance by submitting a 1-2 page summary of their presentation in PDF format to commons.demo at gmail.com by May 3, illustrating the originality and relevance of their work. In addition, and beyond the stated size limit, in the same PDF file authors should include contact information, affiliations and a short biographical note for each author. Submitting proposals in advance will greatly help the team in charge of organising this part of the workshop. The demo committee will ultimately decide how to organise this session, whether to apply any terms and conditions for participation, whether to publish online proceedings of any form, as well as how to ensure that the content will be relevant and of high quality. Workshop Chairs * Jonathan Zittrain, Oxford University, UK * Tyng-Ruey Chuang, Academia Sinica, Taiwan * Giorgos Cheliotis, Singapore Management University, Singapore Academic Programme Committee The academic programme committee comprises senior scholars, recognised thought leaders and some promising young scholars. Moreover, it includes representatives from virtually every part of the world, reflecting the truly international agenda of the workshop: * Bodo Balazs, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary * Giorgos Cheliotis, Singapore Management University, Singapore * Tyng-Ruey Chuang, Academia Sinica, Taiwan * Juan Carlos De Martin, NEXA Center for Internet & Society, Italy * Melanie Dulong de Rosnay, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, USA * Brian Fitzgerald, Queensland University of Technology, Australia * Rishab Ghosh, UNU-MERIT, the Netherlands * James Grimmelmann, New York Law School, USA * Lucie Guibault, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands * Herkko Hietanen, Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, Finland * Minjeong Kim, Hawaii Pacific University, USA * Mathias Klang, Lund University, Sweden * Ronaldo Lemos, Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Brazil * Lawrence Lessig, Stanford University, USA * Lawrence Liang, Alternative Law Forum, India * Lev Manovich, University of California San Diego, USA * Lisa Petrides, Institute for the Study of KM in Education, USA * Anil Samtani, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore * Jan Philipp Schmidt, UWC/UNU-MERIT, the Netherlands * Elizabeth Stark, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, USA * Alek Tarkowski, University of Warsaw, Poland * Anas Tawileh, Cardiff University, UK * Prodromos Tsiavos, London School of Economics, UK * Kim Tucker, Meraka Institute, South Africa * Ariel Vercelli, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina * Jonathan Zittrain, Oxford University, UK Demo Committee The team in charge of organising the demo/speedgeeking session consists of people who are making outstanding contributions towards the promotion of a Free Culture in technology, legal practice and the arts: * Jessica Coates, Queensland University of Technology, Australia * Kevin Driscoll, MIT, USA * Mike Linksvayer, Creative Commons, USA * Jon Phillips, Creative Commons, USA and China * Elizabeth Stark, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, USA Note If you have questions, ideas for special sessions we should host during the workshop, or wish to assist with the organisation of the workshop, please subscribe to the commons-research mailing list at http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-research and send your emails to commons-research at lists.ibiblio.org. http://icommonssummit.org/programme/call-for-submissions/research-submission s.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: ATT00286.txt Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20080427/83bcf379/attachment-0001.txt From monica at sarai.net Tue Apr 29 03:36:40 2008 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:36:40 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Sarai Reader 07, and more Message-ID: Sarai releases 3 publications online. -------------------------------------------- SARAI READER 07: FRONTIERS http://www.sarai.net/publications/readers/sarai-reader-07-frontiers -------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------- SENSOR - CENSUS - SENSOR: Investigating Circuits of Information, Registering Changes of State http://www.sarai.net/publications/occasional/sensor-census-censor -------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------- WORKING QUESTIONS The Sarai CSDS Fellowship Programme - 2002-2007 http://www.sarai.net/publications/occasional/working-questions --------------------------------------------- Publication Details ---------------------------------------------- SARAI READER 07: FRONTIERS ---------------------------------------------- Editors: Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Jeebesh Bagchi, Ravi Sundaram Associate Editor: Smriti Vohra Design: Mrityunjay Chatterjee Editorial Collective: Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Jeebesh Bagchi, Ravi Sundaram, Ravi S. Vasudevan, Awadhendra Sharan + Geert Lovink ISBN 81-901429-9-2 600 pages, 14.5 cm x 21 cm Paperback: Rs 350, US$ 20, € 20 "Frontiers considers limits, edges, borders and margins of all kinds as the sites for declarations, occasions for conversation, arguments, debates, recounting and reflection. Our book suggests that you consider the frontier as the skin of our time and our world, and we invite you to get under the skin of contemporary experience in order to generate a series of crucial (and frequently unsettling) narrative and analytical possibilities. For us, the frontier is a threshold waiting to be crossed, a space rife with the seductive aura of transgression. We are not talking only of actual, physical borders (though of course we are interested in literal and political borders) that are usually the residues of war, but also of the borders between different temporal registers, between languages, between different modes of action, between different bodies of thought and conviction, between the exception and the rule. Looked at this way, a border is more than a constellation of fixed markers circumscribing a domain. We have always viewed the Sarai Reader as hospitable to new and unprecedented ideas, as a space of refuge where wayward reflections can meet half-forgotten agendas. We hope our text this year sets the stage for a productive encounter with the demand for an account of the boundaries, parameters and verges of our times." -------------------------------------------- SENSOR - CENSUS - SENSOR -------------------------------------------- Investigating Circuits of Information, Registering Changes of State Produced and designed at the Sarai Media Lab, Delhi Colloquium Design: Shuddhabrata Sengupta Assisted by Taha Mehmood Documentation Editor: Smriti Vohra Print Design: Mrityunjay Chatterjee This colloquium is an activity of Towards A Culture Of Open Networks, a collaborative initiative of Sarai-CSDS, Delhi (www.sarai.net); Waag Society, Amsterdam (www.waag.org); and t0, Vienna (www.t0.or.at). The initiative is supported by the EU-India Economic and Cross-Cultural Programme under its Media, Communication and Culture Dimension. http://www.opencultures.net ISBN: 978-81-905853-7-8 November 2007, Delhi, India Price: Rs 150, US$ 12, € 10 ---------------------------------------- WORKING QUESTIONS ---------------------------------------- Independent Research & Interdisciplinary Practice The Sarai CSDS Fellowship Programme - 2002-2007 Editors: Debjani Sengupta, Vivek Narayanan Editor (Hindi): Mahmood Farooqui Editorial Coordinator: Shuddhabrata Sengupta Editorial Coordinator (Hindi): Ravikant Interviews: Smriti Vohra Design and Layout: Amitabh Kumar 312 pages, Paperback: Rs. 250, US$ 20. Euro 15 ISBN 978-81-905853-8-5 December 2007 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------- All Publications: Produced and designed at the Sarai Media Lab, Sarai-CSDS, Delhi Published by Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054, India Tel: (+91) 11 2396 0040 Fax: (+91) 11 2392 8391 email: dak at sarai.net, www,sarai.net Any part of these books may be reproduced in any form without the prior written permission of the publishers for educational and non- commercial use only. The editors, contributors and publishers, however, would like to be informed. Monica Narula Raqs Sarai-CSDS 29 Rajpur Road Delhi 110 054 www.raqsmediacollective.net www.sarai.net From prabhuram at gmail.com Wed Apr 30 17:02:10 2008 From: prabhuram at gmail.com (Prabhu Ram) Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:02:10 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Is the US style of examination right for India? Message-ID: <68752c9f0804300432n3c7829e0n665bc0f8903239f8@mail.gmail.com> http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=lmnu2&subLeft=3&autono=321485&tab=r Latha Jishnu: Is the US style of examination right for India? PATENTLY ABSURD Latha Jishnu / New Delhi April 30, 2008 Intellectual Property (IP) is still a strange beast in this country. People eye it rather warily, uncertain of its temperament (how hard will it bite or is it the clawing sort?) and the hidden threat in its still unfolding contours. To familiarise businessmen with this creature, industry organisations have been doing a fair amount of spadework – organising seminars, workshops and talks by visiting experts. It was only towards the end of 2006, however, that such events became high-profile, regular and more widespread. That's when Dominic Keating of the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) began functioning as First Secretary (IP) at the US embassy in Delhi. He put together a small team, one lawyer, IP specialist Sanjit Kaur Batra, and two assistants, and made it an evangelist station for spreading the light on IPR or intellectual property rights. He forged an alliance with the Confederation of Indian Industry to make IPR as much of a talking point with businessmen as VAT (value added tax), another much-distrusted concept some years ago, and appears to have succeeded to a large extent. He also began reaching out to sections of society one would normally not both with –schoolkids and housewives – to allow the idea of IPR to take root in a country which the developed world considers as rather lax on the issue. The overarching theme of such conclaves, many of them organised in concert with prominent American universities, is that protecting IPR creates wealth and transforms economies but if you came to brass tacks it was invariably about combating piracy and counterfeit goods. But the US evidently has more long-term goals in view. In December of that year India and the US signed a memorandum of understanding to further cooperation on IP rights, the focus being on the training of personnel with a view "to strengthening the working of the IP systems in the two countries". Much of the effort has gone into training our patent examiners, an issue that is threatening to become a hot potato for Delhi. Over the past year and a half, the USPTO has provided long-term courses for about a dozen patent examiners, apart from week-long courses for sundry others from the customs officials, police and the registrar of copyrights to the judiciary on the technicalities of the American patent system. Even a judge of the Delhi High Court has been taken to the USPTO for a short-term course. This is bound to raise hackles here. India's patent examiners are, admittedly, ill-equipped and poorly qualified for their task, and the government has done little to set matters right. Instead, it appears to think that training courses in the most sophisticated patent offices of the world is a good way of overcoming the huge problem of human resources in India's patent system. Apart from the US, India has signed agreement with the European Patent Office, and the governments of Japan and Switzerland among others for training our patent examiners. Legal experts and health activists, however, believe this is fraught with peril for a developing country that needs to keep public health concerns paramount. They warn that the strict standards of patentability under India's patent amendment Act of 2005 are not reflected in the laws of the developed countries where big pharma companies are based. A report of the National Institute for Healthcare Management on Changing Patterns of Pharmaceutical Innovation (2002) underlined this point when it said the majority of pharmaceutical patenting in the US is for new uses of old compounds. Section 3 d of the Indian Patent Act, on the other hand, strictly bars evergreening, the practice of lengthening the life of a drug patent through trivial innovations. Interestingly, the US patent system is under attack at home and Congress along with huge swathes of American industry is debating a major overhaul of its processes. IPR took on new form and meaning in 2005 when India reintroduced product patents after a gap of over 40 years –the Patent Act of 1970 recognised only process patents –but policymakers did little to prepare the country for the avalanche of patent applications that have inundated the four offices of the Controller General of Patents (CGP) since 1995. But leaving the training on substantive examination to countries whose laws are not in synch with ours is likely to create more litigation – the courts are already clogged with such cases –and add to the lack of clarity on what is patentable in India. Training in the US and Europe has the potential of improving the technical skills of India's patent examiners but there is a real concern that they will willy-nilly absorb standards of evaluation which are not relevant here. Clearly a double-edged sword.