[Ecommerce] More on WIPO in Bridges Weekly: GENERAL ASSEMBLY BYPASSED IN INFORMAL WIPO TALKS ON PATENT HARMONISATION]

[Manon Ress]

Bridges Weekly: GENERAL ASSEMBLY BYPASSED IN INFORMAL WIPO TALKS ON
PATENT HARMONISATION

At the invitation of World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)
Director-General Kamal Idris, selected WIPO members met in Casablanca,
Morocco on 15-16 February to discuss the continuation of the global
patent harmonisation process.

Many developing countries -- most of which were not invited -- were
heavily critical of the meeting. They noted that Brazil was the only
country among the 14 proponents of a 'WIPO Development Agenda' (see
BRIDGES Weekly <http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/04-09-08/story1.htm>, 8
September 2004) invited to the event, suggesting that this may have been
an attempt to make support for the development agenda appear to be an
isolated point of view. The other Southern representatives in attendance
were from countries that have been passive in WIPO debates on the
development agenda, or from states that are already committed by
bilateral or regional trade agreements to intellectual property
standards that go beyond those required by the WTO, such as Chile and
Morocco.

During the consultations, the approximately 20 countries and patent
offices in attendance came up with an action plan for moving forward on
patent harmonisation, identifying six issues to be dealt with in an
accelerated manner: prior art, grace period, novelty, inventive step,
sufficiency of disclosure, and genetic resources. The meeting did make
mention of the need to pursue a "robust, effective and actionable WIPO
Development Agenda." Brazil was the only country to register opposition
to the statement adopted at the end of the meeting.

Although the last meeting of the WIPO General Assembly gave the
Director-General the mandate to hold informal consultations on patent
harmonisation, several developing country officials argue that the
nature and process of the Casablanca consultations may have exceeded the
mandate's original purpose. They say that the meeting's lack of
transparency and disproportional representation of developing countries
(especially of supporters of the development agenda) call into question
the legitimacy of the resulting course of action as a roadmap for the
WIPO General Assembly to move forward on patent harmonisation.

WIPO under threat

Industrialised countries have recently been pushing the WIPO secretariat
to move forward on patent harmonisation (see BRIDGES Weekly
<http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/05-02-09/story5.htm>, 9 February 2005).
According to James Love, director of CPTech, an NGO focusing on IP
issues, "the US, the EU and Japan are beating up on the WIPO
Secretariat, insisting that it do what it can to get developing
countries to do what they want on patent harmonisation, otherwise
they'll effectively take the Patent Cooperation Treaty out of WIPO by
setting up a rival system..." The Patent Cooperation Treaty, which
regulates the registration of global patents, is WIPO's main source of
revenue. While this is unlikely to happen in the near future, the
pressure on WIPO has definitely been stepped up in recent months. It
remains to be seen how the WIPO secretariat will respond to the
criticism from all sides mounting on its doorsteps.

The parties participating in the Casablanca meeting included: Brazil,
Chile, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Morocco,
Russian Federation, Switzerland, the UK, the US, the African Regional
Industrial Property Organisation, Eurasian Patent Office, European
Patent Office, African Intellectual Property Organisation and the EU.
The meeting was chaired by Dr. R.A. Mashelkar, Director General of the
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and Secretary of the
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in India.

ICTSD reporting; "WIPO Rekindles Patent Talks As Some Cry Foul,"
IP-WATCH, 19 February 2005; "Meeting Recommends Future Course of Action
for WIPO Work Program," WIPO PRESS RELEASE, 18 February 2005; "Brasil se
opoe a projeto de paises ricos para criar patentes globais," VALOR
ECONOMICO, 21 February 2005


--
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, DC PO Box 19367,
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