[A2k] IP-Watch: Debate Heats Up Over WIPO Development Agenda

[Carolyn Deere]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--
--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
A new entry titled 'Debate Heats Up Over WIPO Development Agenda' has
been posted to Intellectual Property Watch weblog.

 <http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index_test.php?p=3D39>
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index_test.php?p=3D39

Debate Heats Up Over WIPO Development Agenda

  <http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-images/line_left_small.gif>

by William New @ 10:32 am, 1/4/2005

Negotiators attending closed meetings at a U.N. body in Geneva in
mid-April could shape the policy agenda for development and intellectual
property for years to come, participants and observers say.

It is not clear how the consecutive meetings at the World Intellectual
Property Organisation will relate to one another. The first, an
=93intersessional intergovernmental meeting=94 (IIM) from 11 to 13 April wa=
s
mandated to discuss a proposal (WO/GA/31/11) for a Development Agenda
tabled at the WIPO annual General Assembly last fall. The second, on 14
and 15 April, is a meeting of the WIPO Permanent Committee on
Cooperation for Development Related to Intellectual Property (PCIPD).

WIPO officials declined to offer details on the subject matter of the
meetings or their relationship to one another.

A key issue in the two meetings, according to developing country
officials and non-governmental observers, will be whether to create a
Standing Committee on Intellectual Property and Development, possibly
converting the PCIPD. According to one official, developed countries and
the WIPO Secretariat favour this approach, which would have the effect
of relegating development issues to a specific forum within WIPO,
thereby allowing for development issues to be ignored other WIPO
committees.

Another primary issue arises from a U.S. proposal circulated in Geneva
prior to the April meetings that stressed boosting technical assistance
and partnerships as a way to address development concerns. This
suggestion was received with scepticism by those who view it as
minimizing larger development issues.

Several developed country officials and the WIPO Secretariat would not
comment on the question of a separate committee, but a communiqu=E9 from a
21-22 March meeting of the Working Group of Industrialised Nations on
Intellectual Property and Development mentioned the need to go beyond
capacity-building and =93deepen our understanding of the relationship
between IP and economic, social and cultural development,=94 a line
similar to one in the U.S. proposal.

But like the U.S. proposal, the industrialised nation communiqu=E9 focused
most on capacity building. The meeting was hosted by the European Patent
Office in Munich. The 53 delegates attending also discussed existing
proposals on the disclosure of the origin of genetic resources and
traditional knowledge in patent applications. There was consensus to
discuss this further within WIPO.

The U.S. proposal also states that, =93The U.S. strongly supports
exploring new ideas and approaches to strengthen and expand WIPO=92s
programs to better meet the needs of developing countries, particularly
through the PCIPD.=94 But the partnership program would draw WIPO into a
network of other agencies and the private sector, driven by
=93market-forces=94 principles.

The move to create a separate committee would follow along the lines how
biodiversity issues were handled at WIPO, which some argue have seen
little progress (at least on bio-piracy concerns) since the creation of
an Intergovernmental Committee on IP and Genetic Resources, Traditional
Knowledge and Folklore. The committee=92s creation also has allowed these
issues to be sidelined in key debates such as on the Substantive Patent
Law Treaty in other committees, the official said.

Developing countries and co-sponsors of the development agenda proposal
disagree with the establishment of a single body within WIPO to address
development. A key aspect of the proposal is a call for systemic change
throughout WIPO toward a greater sensitivity to developing country
concerns. WIPO is caught in crossfire, as developed countries speaking
on behalf of their influential intellectual property-producing
industries oppose such a change.

A test of the acceptance of development issues at WIPO will be the June
meeting of the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents, the official
said. That meeting will address a proposal by the United States and
others move forward on patent harmonisation. The proposal received
support at a February consultation with mostly like-minded governments
held by WIPO Secretary-General in Morocco.

A group of developing country sponsors of the Development Agenda
proposal issued a statement criticizing the Casablanca consultation, in
part because it went beyond the Secretary-General=92s mandate from the
General Assembly. The co-sponsors of the original proposal to establish
a Development Agenda at WIPO were: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, the
Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran, Kenya, Peru, Sierra Leone,
South Africa, Tanzania and Venezuela. At the meeting, developing
countries will seek concrete proposals on implementing the agenda, an
official said.

Proponents of the Development Agenda do not appear to oppose the
creation of committees that address aspects of development, such as
technology transfer. But they may favour keeping the overall issue at
the IIM level until the desired change is brought about within WIPO, so
as to keep the issue at a high level, sources said.

One Geneva-based non-governmental representative stressed that
regardless of what committees are created or mandated to look at the
Development Agenda, =93a clear and fundamental demand is that development
issues be integrated in all WIPO bodies, discussions and activities =96
from norm-setting to enforcement to technical assistance.=94

The WIPO meetings have not been without controversy. Non-governmental
groups have complained about WIPO=92s limit on participation to already
accredited organisations. Over 800 people have signed a
<http://www.cic.unb.br/docentes/pedro/trabs/wipo-stats.html> letter
called the =93WIPO Manifesto for Transparency, Participation, Balance and
Access,=94 asking that public interest NGOs be allowed to participate in
the Development Agenda meetings as ad hoc observers. The letter calls on
WIPO to provide assistance in creating a global regime that facilitates
open access to knowledge, according to release from the Electronic
Frontier Foundation.

  _____

This work is licensed under a
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/> Creative Commons
License. All of the news articles and features on Intellectual Property
Watch are also subject to a
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/> Creative Commons
License which makes them available for widescale, free, non-commercial
reproduction and translation.

William New, the author of this post, may be reached at
<mailto:wnew@ip-watch.org> wnew@ip-watch.org.

To subscribe for automatic notifications of these stories, visit
<http://www.ip-watch.org/> www.ip-watch.org, then click on Latest News
and Email Alerts or RSS Feed.
--
[ line_left_small.gif of type image/gif deleted ]
--