[A2k] IP-Watch: WIPO Broadcasting Treaty, EU-Wide Patent Generate Debate

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=3D588&res=3D1024_ff&print=3D0

16/4/2007
WIPO Broadcasting Treaty, EU-Wide Patent Generate Debate

By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen

NEW YORK - Two =93old=94 intellectual property policy issues are continuing
to generate new debate among legal and policy experts, namely the
broadcasting treaty under negotiation at the World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO), and the recent move by the European
Commission to re-launch the debate on a single European patent system.

At a 12-13 April Fordham University conference here some panellists
linked progress on a proposed treaty to boost broadcasters=92 rights to
the current environment for multilateral negotiations. Talks on
strengthening the rights of broadcasters have been ongoing for roughly
a decade, but this year is seen as the last chance for a full
high-level negotiation for the treaty at WIPO.

Shira Perlmutter, executive vice president of global legal policy at
the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), said
that it would =93not be good for WIPO to have another failure,=94 but added
that if a broadcasting treaty cannot be reached, IFPI would take it as
a sign of the difficult environment for multilateral negotiations and
not blame it on =93WIPO as an organisation.=94

Julie Samnadda, who has moved within the European Commission from the
Internal Market Directorate General to Legal Service, said that blame
was being cast for the failure of earlier treaty efforts on
broadcasting, with the European Union, the United States and India, for
example, to some extent blaming each other. Samnadda criticised Brazil.
No participant of Brazil or India were on this panel. Europe, concerned
mainly about sports broadcasts, has been seen as the primary driver for
the treaty since the United States weakened its support after its
proposal to include webcasting was shot down last year.

Samnadda said there are different regional groups within the EU when it
comes to WIPO, all supporting the organisation and a treaty but maybe
to varying degrees and for somewhat different reasons.

Samnadda said that the treaty was needed to cover broadcasters=92 costs
of acquiring rights, saying for instance, that often the broadcasts of
the English Premier Football League are sent back into England via
Japan. But Samnadda said there should only be protection of the signal
and not the content as that was already covered by copyright, (except
for sports programmes without commentaries and sound, which some in the
audience disagreed with).

Tom Rivers, external legal adviser, Association of Commercial
Television, Europe, and media consultant in the United Kingdom, also
talked about the challenge this particular discussion was for WIPO. He
said it could choose between =93a lot of consensus and little content=94 or
vice versa, but WIPO was stuck somewhere in between.

James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, said that
another layer of rights should not be added for broadcasters at a time
when transaction costs had dropped. He said that for some of the
negotiators involved for years, their own reputations seemed to be at
stake. Love said he hoped for a =93meaningless treaty=94 so that WIPO could
move on with other issues.

Comments on WIPO Non-Paper

After years of debate, the chair of the WIPO copyright committee
addressing the broadcasting proposal has presented a non-paper on which
14 member states have provided comments. The latest draft excludes
broadcasting over the Internet, sources said, and will be discussed at
a meeting of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights in
June. Looking at the 14 comments, four of these favoured rights-based
approaches and four (Brazil, India, Indonesia and Iran) were hostile to
such rights, Rivers said.

Perlmutter said her industry would support a treaty if WIPO =93gets it
right,=94 but one should avoid =93poison pills=94 such as cultural diversit=
y
and public domain arguments sought strongly by groups working in the
public interest and a number developing country governments. Before the
June WIPO meeting, the US is planning to hold a roundtable meeting on 9
May and the Commission appears to be planning the same, sources said.

New EU Push on Harmonisation Patents

On 3 April, the European Commission presented a communication proposing
a harmonised patent litigation system in Europe, leaving it to the
European Parliament and Council to take the issue forward (IPW,
European Policy, 4 April).

Harrie Temmink of the intellectual property unit at the Commission=92s
trade directorate told the meeting that the German presidency will hold
three meetings on the patent issue in May and June. He said that the
communication was meant to restart negotiations on a harmonised court
system, hoping it could lead to a single patent system in Europe, which
he said remains a top IP priority for the Commission.

Erik Nooteboom, head of the industrial property unit at the
Commission=92s trade directorate, said that, =93we have entered the last
round,=94 emphasising that this was an attempt to force member states to
take a stand and show their positions. He said that France, for
example, had first supported a proposal for a European patent court
(European Patent Litigation Agreement, or EPLA) and a proposal to ease
the language requirements (the London Protocol) but later changed its
mind, and that the main reason for the 2003 EPLA proposal having failed
was that Germany had difficulties with the centralisation in
Luxembourg.

Tove Gerhardsen may be reached at tgerhardsen@ip-watch.ch.

---------------------------------
Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
voice +41.22.791.6727
fax +41.22.723.2988
mobile +41 76 508 0997
thiru@keionline.org