[Ecommerce] Report from Miami: general concusion of the IP tent and Session on copyright statement

[Manon Ress]

Americas Trade and Sustainable Development Forum (ATSDF)
17-18 November 2003, Miami

Trade, Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights Thematic Tent

CONCLUSIONS

On behalf of the Trade, Knowledge and Intellectual Property tent of the
ATSDF, which included representatives from some 20 organisations, I
would like to make the following statement:

Participants agreed that there should not be an IPRs chapter in the
FTAA. Any future IP negotiations should take place in a suitable
worldwide forum, such as the WTO. Some of the reasons for such a general
statement are:

a) The TRIPs Agreement has not been implemented by many developing and
least developed countries when new standards are already sought;
b) The high cost of implementation for new obligations that in most
cases are TRIPS plus. In the case of the IPR chapter of the FTAA the
costs might be higher than the potential benefits for developing
countries and consumers in the Americas;
c) Lack of effective assistance to address asymmetries in the
technological field,

No TRIPS-plus provisions should be included in current international
trade negotiations. What is needed is a more balanced regime between
public and private interests, allowing, for example, the full
implementation of TRIPS Articles 7 and 8. Just as a more of illustration
some of the TRIPS plus provisions proposed found in the FTAA include:
a) Deletion of the exceptions to patentability,
b) Limitations of measures that countries can undertake to address
public health issues (i.e. limitations to compulsory licensing);
c) Longer periods of protection for copyrights (from 50 to 95 years of
protection plus the life of the author);
d) Reductions of flexibilities to choose the most convenient system to
protect plant varieties;

There should be a moratorium on bilateral/regional IP negotiations.
Countries should refrain from pressuring others to increase IP
protection in a bilateral/regional or multi-lateral forum.

International IP agreements should respect the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and more specifically Articles 19 and 27.

Participants agreed that the following principles and concerns should be
taken into consideration in any multilateral, regional or bilateral
negotiations involving knowledge resources:
=95 Flexibilities to address public interest concerns including health,
environment, nutrition, food security, education that are already
included in national patent laws and copyrights laws should be protected;
=95 IP proposals in the current FTAA text limit generic competition, the
most powerful force for reducing drug prices. Generic competition has
reduced the price of AIDS drugs by more than 98%. This is a matter of
life and death. Countries must prioritise public health over private
commercial interests and fully implement the Doha Declaration on TRIPS
and Public Health;
=95 Flexibilities to chose and use the most convenient system to protect
plant varieties whether through patents or a sui generis system should
be kept;
=95 The Convention on Biological Diversity and the new FAO International
Treaty on Plant Genetic recourses for Food and Agriculture principles,
together with adequate legal mechanisms for assuring legal access to and
benefit sharing from genetic resources, must be directly incorporated in
any international IPR treaty as well as national laws;
=95 Protection of traditional knowledge and folklore needs to be provided
for and fully developed;
=95 Meaningful mechanisms to regulate abuse of rights, and competition
policy to remedy failures linked to IP should be developed;
=95 With respect to copyright policy, trade agreements in general should
be pro-competitive, promote innovation, respect personal privacy and
reasonable private copying rights, ensure access to essential learning
tools, and not undermine the efforts of developing countries to bridge
the knowledge gap;
=95 Open and Free software development models should be encouraged, and
nations should retain flexibility and sovereignty over setting
limitations and exceptions to exclusive rights;
=95 Effective ways for facilitating technology transfer should be included
and new mechanisms for stimulating needs-driven health R&D should be
explored; In this case technology transfer should not be confused with
technical cooperation,
=95 Special and differential treatment for developing countries must be
incorporated and enhanced, and;
=95 Non violation actions that are currently included in the text of the
chapter of dispute settlement should not be allowed in the IPRs field;

Finally an annex has been attached to this statement with
recommendations of each of the session of the workshop on trade,
knowledge and IPRs.

[SNIP]

Here is the report from the Session Five held on November 18, 2003 in Miami=
:

Access to Information and the Copyright and Related Rights Provisions in
the Proposed FTAA

Recognizing the need to maintain a balance between the rights of
authors, copyright owners and the larger public interest, particularly
for the purposes of education, research and access to information, we
recommend that the provisions relating to copyright and related rights:

=95 Respect international principles and obligations including Article 19
and 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
=95 Be consistent with pro-competitive approaches to copyright policy,
=95 Accord higher priority to the protection of personal privacy,
=95 Ensure access to essential research, teaching, and learning tools, and
=95 Not undermine the efforts of developing countries to bridge the
knowledge gap.

Recognizing that innovation is essential for the information society, we
recommend that;
=95 Trade agreements should promote and not inhibit innovation.
=95 The FTAA provisions on intellectual property should encourage the
development of open and free, non-proprietary interoperable software.
=95 Reasonable private copying rights for consumers, researchers, students
and educators should be ensured.

Finally, the agreement should respect countries=92 national sovereignty
and right to retain flexibility in creating limitations and exceptions
consistent with their national policies and their existing international
obligations.

Let me know if you would like to receive reports from other session.

Manon