Over the past several months, the Obama Administration has had a spirited internal debate over secrecy, in the context of a new trade agreement on the enforcement of intellectual property rights. So far, secrecy is winning.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is the name of this agreement, even though...

This week 40 or so countries are meeting in South Korea to consider text for a new international agreement on the enforcement of intellectual property rights. It is called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The term "counterfeiting" is designed to demonize the agreement critics as friends of organized crime, much...

The letter below reports the views of several groups and individuals concerning the lack of transparency of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). This is something that is so obvious, it should not require comment, on a policy that is completely indefensible.

The. U.S. and 39 or more countries are...

The U.S. government has created a secret process for insiders to view key negotiating documents for trade agreements -- as an alternative to demands for more openness.

The particular negotiation in question is a controversial trade agreement on the enforcement of intellectual property, referred to under the inaccurate but emotive...

The front page of today's New York Times has an article by David Kirkpatrick, confirming more details of the White House deal with big pharma. (Be sure to read the original, and support the NYT)

For anyone who didn't notice earlier, this description by PhRMA CEO Billy...

In a few minutes, Representatives Anna Eshoo and Joe Barton will team up to block the registration of generic biologic medicines. They are doing this by way of an amendment to the health reform bill that will replace a very good provision drafted by Henry Waxman to one backed...

On Wednesday, Howard Dean appeared at a Center for American Progress (CAP) event to discuss health care reform. At one point, the moderator said:

I was just reading the other day an article in the Huffington Post. They, um, they call you a "shill for the biotech industry." Any...

According to data from OpenSecrets.Org, from 1992 to 2006, Pfizer gave 74 percent of its campaign contributions to Republicans. Since then, particularly after Hank McKinnell left as CEO, Pfizer is giving slightly more to Democrats than to Republicans. In the current cycle, 54 percent of contributions go to Democrats.

The July 20, 2009 issue of BioCentury has an extensive report on the "Biosimilar fire Drill." It discusses in detail the lobbying by the Biotechnology Industry Association (BIO, bio.org) to defeat efforts by President Obama, OMB, the FTC, Representative Waxman, Senator Brown, AARP, Public Citizen, PIRG,...

On Thursday, I wrote a blog for the Huffpo titled Key Democrats Back BIO Industry Against Consumers to Delay Generic Medicines (Biosimilars)." (BIO Stands for the Biotechnology Industry Association).

One of the key democrats I mentioned was Joe Trippi, who wrote an article in the Huffpo on July...

Congress is considering a long overdue reform in the way the FDA regulates medicines that are classified as "biologic products." For medicines classified as pharmaceuticals, the FDA created a system for allowing new drugs on the market if they were "bioequivalent" to a drug that had already been approved....

It is not easy to make good policies on health care reform when you don't have good information. So it is surprising that the Administration is opposing a measure to have more openness about pharma industry economics.

In recent years, there has been a push for greater transparency of the...

I am attending a meeting in Geneva of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). This evening the United States government, in combination with other high income countries in "Group B" is seeking to block an agreement to discuss a treaty for persons who are blind or have other reading disabilities.

The most favorable explanation for what is going on this week in Geneva is that Hillary Clinton and Obama are not following what key Bush hold-overs are about to do. The less favorable explanation is that Secretaries Clinton (State) and Sebelius (HHS) and the Obama White House are closely working...

What do President Obama, Vice President Biden, Toni Morrison, the Pope, Stephen King, Maya Angelou, Mother Teresa, Isaac Asimov, Tom Brokaw, P.D. James, Robert B. Reich, George Will and Ann Coulter have in common? In the last few days, they have all disabled books available on the Kindle 2, so...

One of the more interesting aspects of the modern knowledge society is the free software movement. The most famous and influential leader of this movement is Richard M. Stallman (RMS). Richard recognized the value of a new model for software development and the various risks to that model. He...

As has been written about extensively in the press and the blogsphere, the Authors Guild has pressured Amazon to disable the text to speech feature in Kindle 2. This has set of a storm of opposition among groups that see the Guild's actions as harmful to access for persons who...

We have been seeking access to documents relating to negotiations on an important new intellectual property enforcement treaty. The agreement, misleadingly named the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, is thought to cover a wide range of intellectual property enforcement issues -- including standards for granting injunctions for alleged infringement of...

Around the 30th of April, the United States Trade Representative will issue something called the "Special 301 Report." The USTR 301 report, while practically unknown within the United States, will make front page news in many developing countries. USTR describes the report as follows:

The "Special 301" Report is an...

Sometimes you just have to say no. The Obama administration is now faced with a merger so obviously harmful, that if it doesn't say no, it will send the signal that it could care less about consumers, artists, and small businesses.

This week the U.S. Senate and the...