[Ecommerce] FromGeneva: Icy winds and open standards tempest descend upon Ivy League haven

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

Icy winds and open standards tempest descend upon Ivy League haven

FromGeneva
Thiru Balasubramaniam
February 6, 2007

On a cold winter's day (February 3, 2007) buffeted by hyperborean
winds, around 70 participants including government officials (Belgium,
China, South Africa and the United States), academics (Georgetown,
Harvard, Hebrew University, MERIT, Santa Clara, University of Colorado
and Yale) public interest groups (IP Justice, Knowledge Ecology
International), corporate representatives (IBM, Microsoft and SUN), the
World Bank and technologists met in the New England town of New Haven
at the International Symposium on Open Standards (ISIS) convened by the
Yale Information Society Project. The ISIS was divided into four
panels: (1) technology, (2) economics, (3) politics and (4) law. From
my own perspective, while most people focused their attention on
standards' impact on US technology vendors, a small but high level
group of participants were deeply engaged in the global debates about
how standards and intellectual property can be barriers to trade. In
one sense, the collegiate discussions over the central question of
whether non-disclosure of patent assets in standards constituted a
barrier to trade served as a "proxy debate" between China and United
States in lieu of actual consideration of this subject at the World
Trade Organization.

http://fromgeneva.blogspot.com/2007/02/icy-winds-and-open-standards-
tempest.html

More after jump.

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Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
CPTech, a project of Knowledge Ecology International
voice +41.22.791.6727
fax +41.22.723.2988
mobile +41 76 508 0997
thiru@cptech.org