Member of the European Parliament Eva Lichtenberger has sent an open letter to her colleagues about the European Patent Package. She notes the patent package is set to be debated and voted in first reading in the December despite the fact that the European Council amended the first reading agreement reached with the Legal Affairs Committee, and no subsequent negotiations have being held to...
Today the FFII sent an open letter to the President of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Mr Vassilios Skouris. In the letter the FFII asks the Court to reconsider the Court’s rules on amicus curiae briefs in opinion procedures and accept amicus curiae briefs in the ACTA referral. See also: FFII’s Amicus Curiae Brief to EU Court of Justice and EU...
On 13 November 2012 the FFII sent an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to the Court of Justice of the European Union. A few hours later the registry of the court informed the FFII that only the Member States, the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission may participate in the Opinion procedure and submit...
Today the FFII sent an amicus curiae brief about ACTA to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The FFII concludes that ACTA is not compatible with international human rights instruments, the European Convention on Human Rights, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, or the European Treaties. Press release: http://press.ffii.org/Press+releases/FFII%20letter%20to%20European%20Court%20of%20Justice%20on%20ACTA Amicus curiae brief, original pdf: http://people.ffii.org/~ante/acta/FFII-ACTA-amicus-brief-2012.pdf An html export, with endnotes and an...
This is my submission to the “Call for a progressive agenda on creation and innovation”, launched by the Greens / EFA in the European Parliament. It is partly inspired by Peter K. Yu, Intellectual Property and Human Rights in the Nonmultilateral Era. Make the IP system compatible with the Union’s human rights obligations Human rights protect people. In the EU, fundamental rights protect intellectual...
The pharmaceutical industry abuses patents to ask exorbitant prices, says Dr. Huub Schellekens, professor at Utrecht University, in an interview with Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (11 August, paywall). In the Netherlands, one of the richest countries in the world, the “College van Zorgverzekeringen”, the government organization responsible for reimbursing medical costs, started a discussion on whether it is still possible to reimburse the high...
On February 1, 2012, I filed a maladministration complaint against the European Parliament for systematically lying about the existence of documents. The complaint attracted attention from Members of the Parliament. Daniel Cohn-Bendit & Rebecca Harms, Co-Presidents Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament wrote to Mr Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, to ask him to fully cooperate. The European Ombudsman reformulated my complaint...
The EU – Canada trade agreement (CETA) contains the same draconian civil and criminal measures as ACTA, see Michael Geist. He recommends: “With anti-ACTA sentiment spreading across Europe, Canada should push to remove the intellectual property chapter from CETA altogether.” I agree completely: trade agreements and IP regulations have to be disentangled. “CETA must be cancelled altogether (or its repressive ACTA parts must be...
