[Ecommerce] FYI: FT Story on WIPO Open Development Models

[Manon Ress]

http://search.ft.com/search/article.html?id=3D031001001065

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY: Hopes revive for talks on alternatives to patents
By Frances Williams in Geneva
Financial Times; Oct 01, 2003

Officials of the World Intellectual Property Organisation still hope to
promote international discussion on ways to promote innovation by
sharing information rather than protecting it, even though the US killed
off earlier plans for a Wipo conference after heavy lobbying by the
proprietary software industry.

"Quite a lot of people are interested in having a discussion of this
issue," Francis Gurry, Wipo deputy director-general, said yesterday. "I
think we will be able to revive it one way or another."

However, Mr Gurry said Wipo was considering a broader focus for the
discussion that would look at various options for protecting
intellectual property and their impact on innovation.

Wipo did not want to appear to be intervening in a current commercial
battle over open-source software in the US, Mr Gurry said.

Open-source advocates accuse Microsoft, the world's biggest proprietary
software company, and the Business Software Alliance of which it is the
most prominent member, of lobbying the US patent and trademark office
(PTO) to stop Wipo going ahead with its original plans.

Lois Boland, PTO international relations director, said last month that
open-source software ran counter to the mission of Wipo, which was to
promote intellectual property rights.

"To have a meeting whose primary objective is to waive or remove those
protections seems to go against the mission," she told National
Journal's Technology Daily.

The spat arose after more than 60 academics, researchers and consumer
activists - among them Nobel prizewinners Joseph Stiglitz (economics)
and Sir John Sulton (medicine) - wrote to Kamil Idris, Wipo
director-general, in July, asking Wipo to convene a meeting next year on
open and collaborative projects.

Citing examples from the worldwide web to the human genome project and
the global positioning system, as well as open-source software, the
letter said they provided "evidence that one can achieve a high level of
innovation in some areas of the modern economy without intellectual
property protection, and indeed excessive, unbalanced, or poorly
designed intellectual property protections may be counterproductive".

In his response to that letter, Mr Gurry said: "The director-general of
Wipo looks forward with enthusiasm to taking up the invitation to
organise a conference to explore the scope and application of these
models as vehicles for encouraging innovation." But Ms Boland complained
Wipo was allowing activists, rather than member states, to dictate the
agency's agenda.

Many scientists and researchers have expressed concern that scientific
advances and innovations are being hampered by a proliferation of
patents, especially in the US.

Mr Gurry said yesterday

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More info here:
Text of letter to WIPO on open development models (most important is annex)
http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/kamil-idris-7july2003.pdf
http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/rndtf/

Nature Article on WIPO meeting 10 July 2003
important quote... WIPO agrees to convene meeting
http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/Nature-WIPO-July.pdf

August 19, 2003, Two articles by William New explaining Microsoft/US
opposition to meeting
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/random-bits/2003-August/001090.html

August 21, 2003, Krim's article in Washington Post on Microsoft/US
opposition to meeting
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23422-2003Aug20.html

August 22, 2003, Larry Lessig blog on US opposition to meeting
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001436.shtml

August 22, 2003 Slashdot article:
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/08/22/2014231.shtml?tid=3D103&tid=3D117&tid=
=3D99

August 22, 2003,
Open Source Industry Alliance, OSAIA letter to USPTO et all on WIPO event
http://www.osaia.org/documents/pto_letter_032108.pdf

August 23, 2003, Paul Kedrosky slagging Jamie Love in the Canadian press:
http://www.nationalpost.com/financialpost/story.html?id=3D238F46ED-4396-4CE=
9-AB21-4E05167D31D1


28 August 2003, NATURE|VOL 424 |28AUGUST 2003
Lobbying by US business interests has shot down a proposed meeting, to
be held by the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization
(WIPO) next year, to explore =91open=92 models of innovation.
http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/20030828-Nature-WIPO.pdf

--
Manon Anne Ress
Consumer Project on Technology
www.cptech.org
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
manon.ress@cptech.org, voice: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176