When a French teen becomes the target of police and is subjected to their interrogation while spending a night behind bars, one would imagine that perhaps the teen had committed a serious criminal act. Not so in this case. In July 2007, just a few days after the final Harry Potter novel was released in […]
A Swiss pharmaceutical company, Novartis, sought to have the January 2006 decision to reject its patent application for the cancer drug imatinib mesylate (Gleevec) reversed by the Chennai High Court in India. Gleevec is used in the treatment of Leukemia. Novartis sells Gleevec at $2500 per patient per month in India; generic versions cost $175 […]
On August 27, 2007, the International Herald Tribune published an article by Dan Mitchell titled “Micropayments arrive on the Web.” This piece examined the evolution and reemergence of the use of small user fees, known as micropayments, in exchange for content on the internet. After reading Mitchell’s article, the main question that comes to mind […]
In May of 2007 scientists at J. Craig Venter Institute filed a U.S. patent application on the world’s first synthetic living organism (U.S. Patent application number 20070122826). The patent application claims include a set of essential genes required to provide the bare essentials of life as well as a “free-living organism that can grow and […]
In January 2006, the Patent Office of Chennai rejected the patent application by Novartis for patent of the drug Gleevec (chemically known as imatinib mesylate). Since then till date, the Novartis saga has prompted numerous headlines and scores of commentaries. What is so unique about the entire controversy? After all, aren’t patent applications rejected by […]
It is virtually impossible to prohibit users from uploading any type of video on YouTube, including uploading parts or all of a musicians’ music video. Even when artists request YouTube take down their videos because of copyright issues, new videos are uploaded the following day. Sharing amateur and professional videos on YouTube has been phenomenally […]
India, which followed the approach of process patenting to pharmaceuticals switched over to product patenting by way of an amendment in 2005 in order to be in consonance with the TRIPs agreement. However, India also used the flexibility offered by the WTO rules, which while setting a minimum standard for patent protection, restrained from defining […]
Although the imagery of the article from which this post takes it’s title, is hilarious; turn our movie theatres into war zones, with metal detectors, pat-downs, and night-vision goggles, while security at our schools and universities remains lax, I believe that despite the movie industry’s use of James Bond-esque technology, this may not be the […]
Admittedly, I cannot recall the last time I purchased a music CD but I do have a half empty box of blank CDs on my bookcase. I also have an iPod that I use regularly to stave off the monotony of my commute. The current Private Copying Levy allows people like me to actively download […]
The private copying levy is enforced by the Copyright Board of Canada where a levy is imposed on purchases of audio recording medium within the meaning of Section 79 of the Copyright Act. The Canadian recording industry strongly pushed for this levy to be extended to the MP3 player devices and in 2004 legislation was […]