Mar 20, 2022The Quad WTO proposal on COVID 19 and TRIPS proposal is tied for the 5th best option for exportsAs discussed elsewhere, recently leaked proposal by the United States, the European Union, India and South Africa (the Quad) to resolve WTO negotiations over intellectual property rights and the COVID 19 pandemic are considerably more narrow than the original proposal. When proposed in 2020 as IP/C/W/669, there was a call…6 min read6 min read
Mar 17, 2022The proposed WTO agreement on intellectual property and COVID 19 vaccines should not require that authorizations of non-voluntary use of patents list all patents covered.The recent proposal by the European Union, the United States of America, India and the Republic of South Africa (the QUAD) to resolve the WTO negotiations on intellectual property rights and the COVID 19 pandemic includes a new limited waiver of restrictions on vaccine exports under a compulsory license. …3 min read3 min read
Feb 25, 2022The Bayh-Dole Act definition of “practical application”(revised March 3, 2022) This is an essay about a one sentence definition in a federal law that sets out the public’s rights in government funded inventions, and in particular, what “available to the public on reasonable terms” means. It discusses the text, the legislative history, and attempts to ignore…16 min read16 min read
Feb 7, 2022TRIPS waiver, circa (Feb 7) 2022On October 2, 2020, India and South Africa tabled IP/C/W/669 before the World Trade Organization (WTO) Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The title of the tabled paper was “Waiver from certain provisions of the trips agreement for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19.” WTO Director-General…Wto6 min readWto6 min read
Jan 1, 2022Richard StallmanRichard Stallman has played an enormously important role in shaping the world of software and computing, one that should be more widely appreciated. His most significant achievement was not in writing any particular lines of code, but in creating a mechanism to protect code as a public good, and motivating…Richard Stallman9 min readRichard Stallman9 min read
Dec 29, 2021Desktop LinuxI work in a few different locations these days, and each has at least one home-built computer that runs Linux for my primary work station. I also have a few laptops. The one I use the most is a Pixelbook running ChromeOS, also a Linux distribution. …Linux5 min readLinux5 min read
Dec 23, 2021Member-onlyCOVID and U.S. sanctionsOn December 8, 2021, KEI wrote a letter to the Biden Administration, asking for measures to better clarify and simplify its sanctions programs so that the humanitarian exceptions work better. …Sanctions2 min readSanctions2 min read
May 10, 2021Member-onlyMy last interview with Heesob NamIn April 2021, I began an interview with Heesob Nam, a very important actor in efforts to expand access to medical technologies. Heesob unfortunately died on May 10, 2021, before completing the interview. Heesob is a patent attorney working in Korea who holds a Ph.D degree in law from Queen…3 min read3 min read
Mar 20, 2021Member-onlyBuying Know-How to Scale Vaccine ManufacturingThe development of a number of COVID 19 vaccines has been an impressive achievement, one that can be attributed to a genuine sense that this was an emergency, and the fact that governments spent billions of dollars to subsidize or completely pay for research and development, and de-risking the scale…Covid-196 min readCovid-196 min read
May 10, 2019The perception that prescription drug industry is a partner to protect, rather than a seller with contrary interestsOne particularly corrosive form of corruption regarding pharmaceuticals regards selling the notion that governments share common interests with companies in blocking transparency and enabling excessive pricing, because industry employment is seen as high wage, or high tech. The “protect the good jobs” argument is typically soft on data or analysis…Transparency2 min readTransparency2 min read
