[Ip-health] SUNS report: NGO Press briefing on WIPO

[martin khor]

to IP health moderator:  please use this version,
with right subject heading



Please see report in SUNS on the NGO media conference
held in Geneva on 29 Sept 2004 on the developments
at WIPO.  It was organised by CPT's Geneva office.

This is circulated courtesy of SUNS

martin khor



SUNS #5656 Thursday 30 September 2004

south-north development monitor SUNS [Email Edition]

twentyfourth year  5656  thursday  30  september  2004

contents


Development: NGOs support a 'Development Agenda' for WIPO
  (Kanaga Raja, Geneva)


publisher: third world network, 121-S jalan utama, 10450 penang, malaysia

chief editor: chakravarthi raghavan, rm c508, 8-14 av. de la paix, ch-1211
geneva 10,
switzerland; tel (4122) 7344274; fax 7401672; email: <sunstwn@bluewin.ch>,
internet <http://www.sunsonline.org>

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Development: NGOs support a 'Development Agenda' for WIPO

Geneva, 29 Sep (Kanaga Raja) -- Several civil society organizations gathered
here for the annual General Assemblies of the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO) have welcomed and supported a proposal put forth by
Argentina and Brazil calling for the establishment of a "Development
Agenda'.

An NGO statement distributed at a media briefing Wednesday said that the
proposal by Argentina and Brazil constitutes an unparalleled opportunity for
all developing countries and development-oriented NGOs to put on
WIPO's agenda the issue of development.

The statement, signed by over 25 organizations, urged the developing
countries and other NGOs to support the initiative.

The proposal is up for discussion Thursday at the Assemblies. Among other
things, it calls for redirecting the focus of the agency to a  range of
initiatives more responsive to development and the concerns of its critics.

According to the NGOs, the proposal has the support of a group of developing
countries, including Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Iran, Kenya, Sierra Leone,
South Africa,Tanzania and Venezuela.

Additionally, another group of about 500 eminent persons have called on the
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to change course and
incorporate economic, social and cultural development within its mission,
instead of pushing for stronger forms of intellectual property rights.

The group comprising scientists, economists, legal experts, consumer
advocates, and health activists including two Nobel Laureates made this call
in their statement titled the "Geneva Declaration on the Future of the World
Intellectual Property Organization" (SUNS #5652).

The statement was drafted to support to an Argentina/Brazil proposal calling
on WIPO to adopt a 'Development Agenda', which has been tabled at the WIPO
General Assembly meetings this week.

The "Geneva Declaration" advances a global perspective, whereby innovators,
creators and developing countries have a common interest in exploring new
and promising forms of cooperation. It signals the formation of a new
coalition of individuals and public-interest NGOs from both the North
and the South, which seeks to put on the table alternative proposals to
 foster creative endeavour.

The Declaration states in part: "We do not ask that WIPO abandon efforts to
promote the appropriate protection of intellectual property ... But we
insist that WIPO ... take a more balanced and realistic view of the
social benefits and costs of intellectual property rights as a tool, but not
the only tool, for supporting creative intellectual activity."

The Declaration refers to the 1974 agreement with the UN establishing WIPO
as a  specialized agency of the UN system, which requests WIPO to take
"appropriate action to promote creative intellectual activity," and
facilitate the transfer of technology to developing countries, "in order
to accelerate economic, social and cultural development."

The signatories of the Declaration believe that a more appropriate
expression of WIPO's mission is found in the 1974 UN/WIPO Agreement, which
calls for WIPO to "promote creative intellectual activity and facilitate the
transfer of technology related to industrial property".

At the media briefing Wednesday, Martin Khor, Director of the Third World
Network, referred to the recent Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue meeting on
17-18 September, where concerns emerged among many NGOs as well as from
scientists, lawyers, librarians and software developers on the future
direction of WIPO, and out of this has emerged the Geneva Declaration.

Khor said that the signatories of the Declaration were not against
intellectual property rights (IPRs) altogether but were for appropriate IPRs
that strikes the right balance between rights holders and the rights of the
public such as consumers of essential goods like medicines, consumers
of information as well as other users such
as small and medium sized enterprises in developing countries.

Khor added that a major milestone was the TRIPS agreement at the WTO that
had jacked up standards of intellectual property rights and protections for
the developing countries and today many of these countries are concerned
that
they have to adhere to patent or copyright-levels that are excessively high.

Even the developed countries themselves did not have to subscribe to such
high standards when they were at their early stage of development, Khor
stressed.

As such, problems have emerged with regard to access to medicines, as well
as those relating to traditional knowledge with respect to local communities
involving biodiversity that has been inappropriately patented, Khor said.

While many people involved in intellectual property have been focussing on
the WTO and TRIPS, there has been an increasing awareness that there have
been new developments in WIPO that may tilt the balance in a more
unbalanced way in favour of monopoly privileges of a few and against the
public interest, Khor added.

Julia Oliva of the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL) said
that the NGOs have raised the issue of IPR as a tool for development and not
an end in itself.

The proposal by Argentina and Brazil constitutes a milestone as it
crystallizes concerns raised by the different bodies in a systematic way,
Oliva said.

Oliva also said that the US and Japan proposal at the General Assemblies to
limit the scope of discussion under the Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT)
would leave out all the proposals that the developing countries have been
making^in the last year and a half.
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