Techdirt. Stories about "phrma" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories about "phrma"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:52:00 PDT The USPTO's Reality Distortion Field: Web Filter Blocks Critics Like EFF, Welcomes Maximalist Lobbyists Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120918/12131620417/usptos-reality-distortion-field-web-filter-blocks-critics-like-eff-welcomes-maximalist-lobbyists.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120918/12131620417/usptos-reality-distortion-field-web-filter-blocks-critics-like-eff-welcomes-maximalist-lobbyists.shtml Updated: At 5pm ET, the USPTO called Jamie to say that a contractor had set this up, and after reviewing their policies, they had stopped blocking such sites...

Well this is bizarre. Jamie Love from KEI was over at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a meeting about "global negotiations on intellectual property and access to medicine." The meeting itself was held in a room that it uses for the USPTO's Global Intellectual Property Academy (GIPA), and there is free WiFi for people to use. Love tried to log onto his own website... and found that it was being blocked as a "political/activist group."
Access Denied (content_filter_denied)

Your request was denied because this URL contains content that is categorized as: "Political/Activist Groups" which is blocked by USPTO policy. If you believe the categorization is inaccurate, please contact the USPTO Service Desk and request a manual review of the URL.

For assistance, contact USPTO OCIO IT Service Desk. (io-proxy4)
Love then checked a bunch of other sites... and noticed a rather distressing pattern. For public interest groups who advocate that the existing copyright/patent system is broken, the websites were all blocked. ACLU, EFF, Public Knowledge, Public Citizen, CDT... all blocked. However, if you're a lobbyist for maximalism? No problem! MPAA, RIAA, IIPA, IPI, PHRMA, BSA... come on through. They do allow Creative Commons. Thankfully (for us, at least), they don't seem to block blogs that talk about this stuff. Techdirt is allowed, as are things like BoingBoing, Groklaw and Larry Lessig and Michael Geist's blogs. Though, oddly, a bunch of political sites (DailyKos, TPM, RedState, Rush Limgaugh's site) are blocked.

It may be an "over active" filter -- but it does seem particularly disturbing that all those groups who fight for the public's rights on the very issues the USPTO is dealing with on a regular basis have their sites completely blocked.

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]]> but-techdirt's-available http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120918/12131620417 Wed, 15 Dec 2010 19:11:38 PST MPAA, Pharma Demanding US Push Other Countries To Have Significantly More Draconian IP Laws Than The US Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101213/23520512263/mpaa-pharma-demanding-us-push-other-countries-to-have-significantly-more-draconian-ip-laws-than-us.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101213/23520512263/mpaa-pharma-demanding-us-push-other-countries-to-have-significantly-more-draconian-ip-laws-than-us.shtml pushing for the agreement to include rules that go well beyond current US copyright and patent laws. This, of course, is part of the standard game of leapfrog that the industry plays: get other countries to push stricter laws, then complain that the US is not living up to "international obligations," and get them to bump up their own laws and continue the cycle. In fact, the Obama administration has apparently made it clear that they will not even consider allowing intellectual property rules to be decreased as a part of this agreement and will only look to ratchet up protections. This is, as KEI points out, even though many of the participants in the negotiations are developing nations, who would be greatly helped with lower intellectual property standards, and previous US administration have been more than happy to agree to such agreements:
After being told the Obama Administration would not consider anything that lowered IPR norms in the TPP negotiations, and only measures that raised norms, KEI reminded USTR has the Clinton and Bush Administration both were willing to lower IPR norms, when they were persuaded it was appropriate. This included:
  • President Clinton's December 1, 1999 speech to the WTO endorsing new changes in U.S. trade policy to address concerns over access to medicines.
  • President Clinton's Executive Order 13155 of May 10, 2000, concerning Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals and Medical Technologies.
  • President Bush's decision to agree to the November 14, 2001 Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health.
  • President Bush's decision to accept the waiver to 31.f of the TRIPS agreement on 30 August 2003.
  • President Bush's July 16, 2004 agreement between USTR and Canada to modify NAFTA to allow exports of medicines under compulsory licenses.
  • President Bush's May 10, 2007 agreement on the bipartisan New Trade Policy, which eliminated patent extensions, eliminated linkage of drug registration and patents, and relaxed test data protection for the Peru Free Trade Agreement.
For the Obama Administration to claim that it can only harmonize upwards is really disappointing, given the promises that Obama made during his presidential campaign.


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]]> how-nice-of-them http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101213/23520512263