[Commons-Law] relay

Via: "Prashant Roy"

Via: "Hasit seth"

Hi Sonia,

This is an interesting viewpoint that there is some finite pool of
"Indian IQ" that generates "Indian IP". Suddenly, MNCs are coming to
make use of Indian IQ to create MNC IP. I don't even know what to call
this school of thought....

Thanks for pointing out the article. I still remember the fine
chinese meal you treated me to in Chelsea :-)

Regards,
Hasit

On 8/30/06, commons-law-request@sarai.net wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. India and patents (Sonia Katyal)
> 2. John Mitchell on Culver City "EnterNot" Access (Seth Johnson)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:07:06 -0400
> From: "Sonia Katyal"
> Subject: [Commons-Law] India and patents
> To: ,
> Message-ID:
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>
> Friends:
>
> A great article on a very thought provoking issue, definitely worth thinking about....
>
> "Now that Cisco, Intel, General Electric, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and
> dozens of other companies have established Indian research centers, some
> fear that India's potential intellectual property will increasingly flow
> to multinational companies. "They're using Indian IQ to create IP for
> themselves," says Mashelkar. "We need to exploit our local IQ to
> generate IP for ourselves.""
>
> http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17339&ch=biztech
>
> warmly,
>
> skk
>
> Sonia K. Katyal
> Associate Professor of Law
> Fordham Law School
> 140 W. 62nd St.
> New York, NY 10023
> Send Email: http://law.fordham.edu/ihtml/bio.ihtml?id=766&template=jd
> Papers available at http://ssrn.com/author=115375
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:31:43 -0400
> From: Seth Johnson
> Subject: [Commons-Law] John Mitchell on Culver City "EnterNot" Access
> To: ecommerce@lists.essential.org, a2k@lists.essential.org,
> broadcast-discuss@lists.essential.org,
> upd-discuss@lists.essential.org, commons-law@sarai.net
> Message-ID: <44F514AF.5EE6C888@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
> > http://interactionlaw.com/wordpress/2006/08/28/culver-city-offers-free-wi-fi-enternot-access/
>
>
> Culver City Offers Free Wi-fi 'EnterNot' Access
>
> August 28th, 2006
>
> Culver City is offering public wi-fi access to the Internet
> (http://www.culvercitywifi.org/wifi_access.html) with two big
> caveats: It's not really the Internet, and to use it you agree to
> give up your civil rights.
>
> That's right. First, they offer Internet access, but you must
> agree to "limited" Internet access. And they don't mean limited
> hours of the day, limited locations, or a limited amount of time
> you can be on. No, when they say "limited," they mean that they
> will censor access to parts of the Internet. ("By using this free
> wireless network you are agreeing and acknowledging you have read
> and accepted these terms and conditions of use, and this wireless
> network provides only limited access to the Internet.") In other
> words, they do not offer Internet access at all. As the Dynamic
> Platform Standards Project points out so well
> (http://dpsproject.com/), anyone offering access to a "limited
> Internet" is engaged in false and deceptive advertising because a
> "limited Internet" is an oxymoron.
>
> Second, in order to gain the right to enjoy this free, public,
> non-Internet access, no matter what you read in the Bill of
> Rights (and the First Amendment, in particular) you must agree
> that the government may abridge your freedom of speech and you
> further agree that when it does so (as it promises to do), you
> will not exercise your right to sue for the violation of your
> First Amendment rights!
>
> I'm not making this up. Here's the fine print: "Further, [by
> using it] you are agreeing to waive any claims, including, but
> not limited to First Amendment claims, that may arise from the
> City and Agency's decision to block access to … matter and
> websites [of its choosing] through this free wireless network …."
>
> >From a legal standpoint, it is the same as if the Culver City
> public library were offering you free access to newspapers, but
> was first clipping out the articles it didn't like and making you
> agree not to sue for censorship if you wanted to read what was
> left.
>
> It's starting to look like 1984. "Freedom" means freedom to give
> up your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
> happiness if you want to have free access to the government's
> Internet - or "EnterNot," as the Culver City leadership might
> call it. I'm a big fan of free, public Internet access, but
> without the Doublespeak.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> commons-law mailing list
> commons-law@sarai.net
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
>
>
> End of commons-law Digest, Vol 37, Issue 19
> *******************************************
>

Via: Seth Johnson

> http://interactionlaw.com/wordpress/2006/08/28/culver-city-offers-free-wi-fi-enternot-access/


Culver City Offers Free Wi-fi ‘EnterNot’ Access

August 28th, 2006

Culver City is offering public wi-fi access to the Internet
(http://www.culvercitywifi.org/wifi_access.html) with two big
caveats: It’s not really the Internet, and to use it you agree to
give up your civil rights.

That’s right. First, they offer Internet access, but you must
agree to “limited” Internet access. And they don’t mean limited
hours of the day, limited locations, or a limited amount of time
you can be on. No, when they say “limited,” they mean that they
will censor access to parts of the Internet. (”By using this free
wireless network you are agreeing and acknowledging you have read
and accepted these terms and conditions of use, and this wireless
network provides only limited access to the Internet.”) In other
words, they do not offer Internet access at all. As the Dynamic
Platform Standards Project points out so well
(http://dpsproject.com/), anyone offering access to a “limited
Internet” is engaged in false and deceptive advertising because a
“limited Internet” is an oxymoron.

Second, in order to gain the right to enjoy this free, public,
non-Internet access, no matter what you read in the Bill of
Rights (and the First Amendment, in particular) you must agree
that the government may abridge your freedom of speech and you
further agree that when it does so (as it promises to do), you
will not exercise your right to sue for the violation of your
First Amendment rights!

I’m not making this up. Here’s the fine print: “Further, [by
using it] you are agreeing to waive any claims, including, but
not limited to First Amendment claims, that may arise from the
City and Agency’s decision to block access to … matter and
websites [of its choosing] through this free wireless network ….”

From a legal standpoint, it is the same as if the Culver City
public library were offering you free access to newspapers, but
was first clipping out the articles it didn’t like and making you
agree not to sue for censorship if you wanted to read what was
left.

It’s starting to look like 1984. “Freedom” means freedom to give
up your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness if you want to have free access to the government’s
Internet - or “EnterNot,” as the Culver City leadership might
call it. I’m a big fan of free, public Internet access, but
without the Doublespeak.

Via: "Sonia Katyal"

Friends:

A great article on a very thought provoking issue, definitely worth thinking about....

"Now that Cisco, Intel, General Electric, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and
dozens of other companies have established Indian research centers, some
fear that India's potential intellectual property will increasingly flow
to multinational companies. "They're using Indian IQ to create IP for
themselves," says Mashelkar. "We need to exploit our local IQ to
generate IP for ourselves.""

http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17339&ch=biztech

warmly,

skk

Sonia K. Katyal
Associate Professor of Law
Fordham Law School
140 W. 62nd St.
New York, NY 10023
Send Email: http://law.fordham.edu/ihtml/bio.ihtml?id=766&template=jd
Papers available at http://ssrn.com/author=115375

Via: "Vicky Shah"

Via: "Vicky Shah"

Via: "Anivar Aravind"

India should opposse DRM: Richard Stallman

India should not enact a Digital Rights Management (DRM) law, Dr.
Richard M. Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Movement and the
GNU Project said. He was speaking at the Fourth International
Conference on GPL v3 held at the Indian Institute of Management,
Bangalore, on August 23rd, 2006. He commented that the people who
implement DRM, which he called the "Digital Restrictions Management",
should be in prison if the government is really of the people, by the
people and for the people. This law actually restricts the freedom of
the people. A company that uses the restrictions in producing its DVD
will give the format it uses to create the DVD only to a company that
promises to protect that restriction. The law has been enacted in the
US and the European Union has given a direction in favour of DRM. Now
the government of India is contemplating modifying its laws to
incorporate DRM. The time given for the public to register their
comments on the law was short and was insufficient for anyone to give
a comprehensive response. That time itself is now over. It is
important that the public take this issue and try to convince the
government that what they are planning to do goes against the
interests of the people and protects only the interest of the large
companies. He went on to say that the Free Software licences like the
GNU General Public Licence can do only a little to protect users from
these laws.


The conference was organised by the Free Software Foundation of India,
and the Free Software Users Group, Bangalore, in association with the
Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, to discuss the draft of the
new version of the General Public Licence (GPL), GPL v3. Dr. Stallman
explained why a new version became necessary. He said that revisions
become necessary when problems with the existing licence became clear,
and when new circumstances threatened the freedom that Free Software
promised its users.

As an example of the new circumstances, he mentioned the DRM law and
the example of a program called Tivo. Tivo is a device that records
television programmes for the user to watch at another convenient
time. This is a combination of software and hardware. The software is
based on the GNU/Linux operating system, which is Free Software. All
Free Software gives its users the freedom to modify the software to
suit their purpose, and thus this software also gives the freedom to
its users. But the hardware is designed to reject any software that is
not one of the versions that is designed to run on it. Thus, though
the user has the freedom to modify the software, it becomes
meaningless because then it cannot be used. In other words, though the
software is Free, the freedom becomes meaningless. The present GPL is
not violated, though the freedom is, in practice, useless. The new
version became necessary because of such circumstances.

Prof. Eben Moglen, Professor at the Stanford Law School, Legal Advisor
to the Free Software Foundation, and one of the important contributors
to the new draft, said that protecting the licence from violations is
not an easy job, and involves considerable work from a trained
advocate. He said that a legal expert will be engaged in India if many
violations of the GPL are found here. Referring to the problem related
to some circuits used in wireless networking, he said that there has
been serious problems from Japan, which has declared that any
programmer who releases software for wireless circuits under any
licence that makes its source code available, will be arrested next
time the person lands in Japan.

The conference will continue on 24th August, when two panels will
discuss the relevance of Free Software for software businesses and in
Education. The draft of GPLv3 can be read at http://gplv3.fsf.org/ and
the detailed programme of the conference can be seen at
http://gplv3.gnu.org.in/Conference/Schedule. Some photographs of the
event are available at -- http://gnu.org.in/gplv3-conf-pics/index.html


Anivar Aravind
Free Software Foundation of India
http://gnu.org.in

Via: "Hasit seth"

Thanks Tahir. That was helpful.

On 8/21/06, TAHIR AMIN wrote:
> Hi Hasit,
>
> Far from being an expert, but having drafted the
> oppositions for patient groups against Gilead's patent
> applications for tenofovir disoproxil fumarate
> (TDF/Viread) in India, seen the voluntary licenses on
> offer and been in meetings with them, I can make a few
> comments.
>
> I dont know how much you know about the background to
> TDF, but MSF has been pushing them hard since around
> 2002 to reduce the price of Viread as well as getting
> the drug registered (marketing approval) in its 97
> "Access Programme" countries (all LDCs bar S. Africa i
> believe). Thus far they have only registered in 11
> countries and claim to have applied for registration
> in 51 more. They blame local authorities and partly
> their own naivety for the slow registration - but I
> think that's only a partial truth. For example in
> China, I understand they havent made an application.
> Also they refuse to submit their data for the drug to
> the WHO to enable the pre-qualification process (as
> often used by generics).
>
> So I think its fair to say Gilead has been dragging
> its feet and not lowering its prices since around
> 2002. We filed the patent opposition on 9 May 2006 and
> within a week they had their legal and pr team in
> India offering the voluntary licenses. They claim that
> they had intended as one of their options to offer the
> VLs and so this wasnt a spontaneous gesture. Not
> wanting to be cynical, and may be Gilead had intended
> to do this, but it seems it was accelarated by the
> opposition being filed. Given the worldwide press
> around the opposition by patient groups, one could say
> they are either very worried that their patent(s) wont
> be granted, hence the VLs being a way to get some
> control of the market ( (albeit any VL where no patent
> exists will be worthless which they acknowledge)
> and/or they wanted to overshadow the opposition.
>
> The VL's on offer are, it has to be said reasonable -
> particularly when people like Abbott refuse to offer
> VLs on important second line drugs like Kaletra.
> However, the key is that Indian Generics cant sell to
> Brazil or China (and Thailand - but may be allowed
> later), the countries very much in need of TDF at
> cheaper prices, but only the 97 LDCs (which dont have
> patents anyway - bar S. Africa, but Aspen is already
> licensed). Gilead wants to keep these markets for
> itself (which of course they have every right to - but
> they dont have patents yet in these countries either
> and they are also being challenged there). Having
> looked at the patents, there is every chance they
> might not be granted.
>
> The tech transfer point does have some validity. While
> generics have already processed around Gileads
> process, they may not be getting the highest yields
> possible. I dont know if that might explain Cipla's
> price at the moment (or whether its more to do with
> the markets it can access - probably the latter given
> Cipla's competence in coming up with another process
> and good API).
>
> The key issue about the VLs is the question of whether
> Gilead is trying to control the API market by only
> allowing API producers to sell to companies which have
> a licence to sell the end product. Gilead claims they
> are not and Indian companies can get the API form any
> party it wants provided the quality is the same, but
> that doesnt seem so clear from the terms I have seen.
>
> All in all, Gilead has made a smart pr move. However,
> many of us believe breaking the patents, for which
> there are more than reasonable grounds under the
> Indian Act, will reap even more benefits for aids
> patients, particularly those in Brazil and China - and
> consequently make sure that a stronger patent system
> is developed.
>
> Tahir
>
> --- Hasit seth wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Can some expert here on AIDS drugs tell us what
> > this press-note
> > means between the lines. To me it seems that a
> > patent holder (Gilead
> > still does not have a patent in India, but in US)
> > providing AIDS
> > medicines at a low price with 5 percent royalty and
> > technology
> > transfer (cutting the lab-to-market) time seems ok.
> > But again, we need
> > an expert to opine on this. I posted this here
> > because anything
> > positive for drug companies never gets any bandwidth
> > here.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Hasit
> >
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> > Gilead's anti-AIDS drug now at $1 a day in India
> >
> > By Murali Krishnan, Indo-Asian News Service
> >
> > New Delhi, Aug 20 (IANS) Viread, the largest selling
> > anti-HIV/AIDS
> > drug in the United States, will be available to
> > patients in India at a
> > special price equivalent of $1 a day, its
> > manufacturer,
> > bio-pharmaceutical major Gilead, announced Sunday.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Gilead has already entered into generic licensing
> > deals with three
> > Indian pharma majors - Emcure Pharmaceuticals,
> > Hetero Drugs and
> > Strides Arcolab - for the drug. The Indian firms
> > will make generic
> > versions of Viread and distribute it to 95
> > low-income countries around
> > the world in a couple of months.
> >
> > 'Our endeavour is to provide the widest possible
> > access to our drugs
> > for HIV/AIDS patients. Gilead has devised a tiered
> > product pricing
> > based on a country's economic status and HIV
> > prevalence,' Gilead's
> > senior vice-president Gregg Alton told IANS from San
> > Jose, California.
> >
> > More than 5.1 million people are believed to be
> > infected with the HIV
> > virus in India - the second largest number of
> > infected people after
> > South Africa.
> >
> > 'Viread will be available at $365 per year in India.
> > For African
> > countries where the economic status is lower, we
> > have priced the drug
> > at $203 per year, making it close to 37 cents a day
> > for patients,' he
> > said.
> >
> > There has been much speculation in recent months
> > with claims that
> > Viread had been overpriced, selling at $5,700 in the
> > developed world.
> >
> > Alton said, 'That pricing information is inaccurate,
> > while we have the
> > right to protect our intellectual property in
> > developed markets, our
> > tiered pricing for countries like India and Thailand
> > will ensure that
> > Viread will do well and provide better health status
> > for patients.'
> >
> > Compared with generic versions currently available
> > from pharma major
> > Cipla, priced at over $1,200 per year, the new
> > pricing is bound to
> > come as a relief for patients.
> >
> > Viread (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) is on its way
> > to becoming the
> > frontrunner drug across Europe for HIV/AIDS due to
> > its low toxicity
> > and resistance levels observed in patients. The
> > tablet-a-day dosage of
> > the drug also helps in better regimen and compliance
> > among HIV/AIDS
> > patients taking it.
> >
> > On why the three generic Indian manufacturers agreed
> > to take a license
> > when Gilead does not actually have a patent, Alton
> > said, 'There are
> > several reasons for these license agreements. We
> > will transfer
> > technology and know-how to our partners for them to
> > be able to produce
> > larger, better and higher quality batches of
> > Viread.'
> >
> > The technology transfer is expected to increase
> > efficiency and drive down costs.
> >
> > 'We believe that we are the innovators of one of the
> > foremost drugs in
> > the battle against HIV/AIDS and are hopeful that our
> > patents will be
> > issued in India as they have in many other countries
> > across the
> > world.'
> >
> > Under the terms of the agreement, the generic
> > companies will have the
> > right to manufacture and market both the API (active
> > particle
> > ingredient) and the tablets in perpetuity.
> >
> > While the rights to sell API will be limited to
> > other pharmaceutical
> > companies in India, tablets can be distributed in
> > India, Thailand,
> > Africa and 43 other countries.
> >
> > This offers the Indian licensees a huge business
> > opportunity given the
> > size of the market. In Africa alone, 45,000 patients
> > are currently on
> > Viread, of an estimated infected population of 30
> > million. In India,
> > about 40,000 patients are under treatment on the
> > anti-retroviral drug.
> >
> > In return, the Indian manufacturers will pay Gilead
> > a five percent
> > royalty, which is well within the World Trade
> > Organization norms, as
> > compared with industry practice of much higher
> > royalty rates.
> >
> > Alton said his company was in discussion with other
> > Indian
> > pharmaceutical majors even though some of them have
> > filed oppositions
> > to the Gilead patent filings.
> >
> > He said: 'We are in very advanced stages of
> > discussions with other
> > pharmaceutical companies, including Ranbaxy and
> > Cipla, and are very
> > positive that they will see value in our offer.'
> >
> > Copyright Indo-Asian News Service
> > _______________________________________________
> > commons-law mailing list
> > commons-law@sarai.net
> > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
> >
>
>
> Tahir Amin
>
>
>
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