From misappropriating IP to taxation without representation and poor pandemic management, what’s to like about the WHO? My recent piece in the Financial Post, here.
Richard C. Owens: On vaccine patents, the logic of bandits
Perhaps private enterprise and intellectual property have never served us so well as during the COVID-19 pandemic when, with sudden vaccines and numerous new therapies, the life sciences industry saved the world. In spite of that, short-sighted and spiteful people argue for seizing the intellectual property, of all types, relating to COVID-19 vaccines, therapies and devices through a World Trade Organization intellectual property waiver. In the Financial Post, I write why this is a bad idea. My op-ed is here.
Richard C. Owens: Universities should stop stealing copyright material
It turns out that widespread stealing of copyright-protected material by universities and the education sector generally isn’t cheap after all. Universities bloat their payrolls to feign fairness. My article in the Financial Post is here.
Can Canada Innovate?
Canada has a profound cultural resistance to innovation, and reinforces that through counter-productive policies. Health care is one of the least innovative fields, and Canada does all it can to keep it that way. My recent op-ed in the Financial Post is here.
Universities need to stop stealing
Universities, and others in Canada’s education sector, have decided Canadian authors should work for free. Universities do not want to have to pay for the books and publications they use to teach, so they just stopped, claiming wholesale theft is actually “fair” in accordance with the Copyright Act (Canada), in spite of the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal telling them they are wrong. Now the whole mess is in the hands of the Supreme Court of Canada, whose decisions on copyright are typically unpredictable and wrong. The government desperately needs to act, if it cares for creators at all. My Financial Post op ed is here.
Global Trade and Intellectual Property Alliance Intellectual Property Principles
I helped draft–and aver!–these principles of intellectual property protection.
Richard C. Owens: In GoldTV, internet activism runs aground. Again The servants of Google and TorrentFreak despoil the creative scene, supporting piracy over productivity
My article on GoldTV.
We are SO bad at innovation policy
Canadian innovation policy will make us a laughingstock. My MLI paper is here. See also my op-ed for the Hill Times, and reports of my interviews with them.
WHO’S AFRAID OF THE USMCA? Why the intellectual property provisions in the US Mexico Canada Agreement are good for Canada and its trading partners
My recent paper for MLI can be found here.
El Libero
I recently published an op ed on the importance of strong intellectual property rights in El Libero, a Santiago, Chile newspaper. It is here.