[A2k] Written intervention by FSFE to WIPO CDIP/3

[Georg C. F. Greve]

[ http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=3D327 ]


                 FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION EUROPE (FSFE)

                  STATEMENT TO THE 3rd SESSION OF THE

      COMMITTEE ON DEVELOPMENT AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (CDIP/3)

                    (Geneva, 27 April =E2=80=93 1 May 2009)


Mr Chairman,

On behalf of the Free Software Foundation Europe please allow me to
congratulate you for having been reaffirmed as the chair of this
CDIP. Our congratulations also go to the secretariat for their work on
the implementation of the Development Agenda, which clearly is being
pursued with constructive engagement.

We followed the deliberations of Member States with great interest, and
would like to submit substantive input on issues that were raised with
regards to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) empowerment, innovation,
competition and provide some references regarding successful deployment
of IT technology by WIPO.

As highlighted in the UNCTAD Information Economy Report 2007-2008,
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are a facilitator for
economic growth and innovation across many sectors of society. The
report provides evidence on how the indirect benefits through such
enabled growth and innovation outweigh even the substantial innovative
and economic growth in the ICT sector itself. The report also highlights
how Open Innovation Models empower SMEs and demonstrates the importance
of Free Software for this sector of economy.

Free Software, also known as Open Source, is defined by a unique level
of control for the user. This enables wide use of democratic innovation
models, which were found to be the primary source of disruptive,
non-linear innovation by Professor Eric von Hippel, Head of the
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the MIT Sloan School of
Management.

Both the enabling nature of ICT in general and the specific innovative
benefits of Free Software in particular provide the backdrop against
which we need to understand numbers such as the recent "Australian Open
Source Industry & Community Census 2007" by Waugh Partners, which found
the Australian Free Software economy to generate $500 million per
year. This is consistent with the recent publication of Red Hat's Open
Source Activity Map, which lists Australia as one of the most active
countries in Free Software, alongside countries such as France, Spain,
Germany, Finland, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The mapping is based on research by the Georgia Institute of Technology
which assigned a score for each country based on its policies,
practices, and other data in the fields of Government, Industry, and
Community. With Free Software companies such as Red Hat, Free Software
enabled super-champions such as Google and increasing investment into
Free Software and Open Standards by traditional ICT companies, such as
IBM, Intel, Oracle and others. The United States occupies one of the top
ranks on this map, just before Brazil and China.

Developed countries already reap considerable innovative and economic
benefits from the deployment of Free Software, and a balanced approach
for WIPO Technical Assistance should make this competency available to
all Member States. It is therefore a good start that the Thematic
Projects listed in document CDIP/3/4 foresee some first, tender steps to
build Free Software competency.

Considering that the Free Software model was defined over 20 years ago,
has meanwhile become the basis of a multi-billion dollar industry, and
will be pervasively used by all companies before the end of the year
according to a recent study by the Gartner Group, we believe that
classification as an emerging trend may no longer be appropriate, and
that it might be time to consider more decisive action.

Secondly we would like to identify a gap for the project to address
recommendations 7, 23 and 32 regarding the interface between exclusive
rights and competition. As discussed throughout the last Standing
Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP/13), exclusive rights and
competition are strongly linked in the area of standards and Open
Standards for Information Technologies, in particular.

We believe that it would be useful for this project to be connected with
the work of the SCP, and take into account the work of competition
authorities in this field, inter alia the European Commission's findings
on abusive behaviour pertaining to standards in the Workgroup Server
market and the ongoing investigation regarding abuse of Web standards.

Independent of the merits of a project based approach we believe it is
important that implementation of the WIPO Development Agenda is not
limited to projects that will terminate after a certain period, but is
also reflected in ongoing activities at WIPO. As highlighted by WIPO's
Director General, Mr Francis Gurry, in his opening remarks for this
meeting, the WIPO Strategic Realignment Program is complementary to the
work of the CDIP, and would therefore be the right umbrella within which
to approach the restructuring and establishment of such activities.

Especially cross-cutting issues would appear to qualify for such an
approach, such as the build-up of necessary competency in the areas of
Free Software, Open Standards and Open Innovation Models for other
activities and programmes of the organisation to draw upon.

This would be beneficial not only for the Technical Assistance
programmes, which could supply more balanced strategic innovation policy
advice, as requested by several Member States, or provide state of the
art Free Software solutions to common problems, such as the issues of
software translation raised by the honourable delegation of Thailand. It
would also ensure that deployment of IT systems and databases by WIPO
would adequately meet today's strategic approaches to these issues.

The European Commission's Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment
Services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens (IDABC)
provides valuable reference in this field, in particular the European
Interoperability Framework (EIF), but WIPO should also take note of the
experiences of the German Federal Foreign Office and its use of Free
Software, making it the most cost effective IT department of all German
ministries. The UK government recently published a government action
plan for Open Source, Open Standards and Re=E2=80=93Use that could provide =
a
good starting point for WIPO's strategy, and the city of Munich in
Germany additionally provides valuable insights into strategic reasons
to adopt a policy based on Free Software and Open Standards.

We believe that the expected deployment of technologies, such as the one
described in document CDIP/3/INF/2, would greatly benefit from such
strategic consideration in order to secure sustainable success for all
projects.

Thank you, Mr Chair.


                --- Statement by Georg C.F. Greve <greve@fsfeurope.org>
                             Free Software Foundation Europe, President


--
Georg C. F. Greve                                 <greve@fsfeurope.org>
Free Software Foundation Europe=09                 (http://fsfeurope.org)
President                                      +41 43 500 03 66 ext 400
http://fsfeurope.org/about/greve            http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve