The conditions facing the public sector during the pandemic are so severely different than those facing those who they serve that they are institutionally incapable of making sound policy decisions, or even of creating processes to inform those decisions. My Financial Post op-ed is here.
Open Media is a disgrace
Weighing in on the wretched campaign of disinformation waged by Google supporter Open Media in the Financial Post here.
FairPlay in the Post
Here is my latest from the Financial Post, describing the FairPlay initiative to block pirate sites on the Internet.
FairPlay
Today is the final day for interventions to the Canada Radio-Televison and Telecommunications Commission on the FairPlay anti-piracy proposal. The FairPlay Proposal is a very carefully thought out means to begin to curtail online piracy in Canada. It deserves our support. I got my intervention into the CRTC today. It follows. FairPlay Submission
The Unkindest Cut
The federal government is planning ill-advised changes to the regulations governing the Patented Medicines Price Review Board. The intention is to make drugs in Canada more affordable. But we actually do not have high prices for drugs in Canada, relative to other jurisdictions, and prices have been kept under tight control for years. The actual effect of reducing drug prices will be to make life-saving therapies much harder to access, because they will not be introduced early into Canada. Moreover the proposed changes will make PMPRB procedure much slower and more complex. It is even possible that they will reset in higher prices. They will certainly worsen the environment for innovation in Canada. My paper with Wayne D Critchley on the topic has been published my Macdonald-Laurier Institute and can be found right here.
Canadian Courts Correcting Course
While Canada’s Federal and Supreme courts have long and distinguished traditions in IP jurisprudence, there have been a few hiccups this millennium. What is wonderful is how quickly the courts are fixing their mistakes. My essay for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute here.
Intellectual Property Policy for Canada–Part 3
And finally, here is part 3.
New Intellectual Property Policy for Canada–Part 2
The second part of my 3 part series of papers for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute on a new IP strategy for Canada is published today, here:.
A New Intellectual Property Policy
I recently published the first of 3 papers reviewing the basis for a new intellectual property policy for Canada: it can be found here.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership: IP and Electronic Commerce
I have recently taken up sparring in the arena of public opinion on the merits of the intellectual property chapter (18) and the electronic commerce chapter (14) of the newly negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership. I am greatly convinced of those merits in spite of nay-sayers like Jim Balsillie and Michael Geist. I rebutted their comments about the IP chapter first in an op-ed in the National Post. This led to writing and publishing, through the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a more comprehensive paper on the IP provisions. That led in turn to a second op-ed in the National Post, this time focusing on the electronic commerce provisions of the TPP, and to an interview on BNN. There seems to be a lot of misconceptions out there about the TPP and I hope I have helped to dispel them. Based on a review only of these two chapters, the TPP is a very good deal for Canada indeed and important step in freer trade in the region.