[Ip-health] WIPO: Decisions taken on Development Agenda, patents, broadcasting

[Sangeeta]

=A0

SUNS #6111 Tuesday 3 October 2006

Decisions taken on Development Agenda, patents, broadcasting

Geneva, 2 Oct (Sangeeta Shashikant) -- The World Intellectual Property
Organisation (WIPO) has adopted decisions on how to proceed on three
important issues that have been pre-occupying its General Assembly in the
past week.

Agreement was reached on how to proceed with WIPO's work on the Development
Agenda initiative, on patents, and on the proposed broadcasting treaty.

On WIPO's patents work, the decision reflects the deep and continuing
impasse on how to proceed. In the decision, no meeting of WIPO's Standing
Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) is scheduled in the coming year.

Instead, delegates are invited to submit proposals on the SCP's work
programme and the General Assembly chairperson, Ambassador Enrique Manalo o=
f
the Philippines, will conduct informal consultations for the purpose of
discussing the proposals and recommending a work plan for the SCP to the
General Assembly in September 2007.

This extremely minimalist programme means that the negotiations in the SCP
regarding the Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT) are put on hold. There
have been very deep divisions, on North-South lines, in the past two years
on the scope, content and process of the SPLT.

On the Development Agenda, the WIPO Members agreed that the issue will
continue to be discussed for at least another year in the existing
Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda
(PCDA). All the 111 proposals on the table will be discussed, with a batch
of 40 proposals discussed at the first meeting and the remainder in the
second.

The proposals will also be "streamlined", with the Chair of the General
Assembly responsible for consulting members and producing initial documents=
.

On the proposed broadcasting protection treaty, the convening of a
Diplomatic Conference (for final negotiations and conclusion of the treaty)
has been postponed to November-December 2007.

Two meetings of WIPO's Copyright Committee will be held in January and June
to discuss and revise the current treaty draft. The decision says that the
Diplomatic Conference will be convened if agreement is reached on amending
the present draft of the proposed treaty to reflect a signal-based approach=
,
the objectives, specific scope and object of protection of the proposed
treaty.

This leaves open the possibility that the Diplomatic Conference may not be
convened if there is no agreement.

A delegate from the Group of Friends of Development (GFOD) commenting on th=
e
overall outcome of the GA, said that the most "substantive and significant"
decision of the General Assembly, for developing countries, is on the
Development Agenda.

The delegate added that previously Members would be talking about patent
harmonisation but at this General Assembly, the issue of "patent
harmonisation is out".

The three decisions were adopted on the morning of Monday (2 October),
following negotiations last week that stretched into last Saturday
afternoon.

The decision on the Development Agenda states that: "The General Assembly
reviewed the positive discussions during the two sessions of the Provisiona=
l
Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda (PCDA) in
February and June 2006, emphasized the need to continue discussions on the
proposals submitted and placed in the six clusters during the IIM/PCDA
process, and decided as follows:"

-- To renew the mandate of the PCDA for another period of one year.

-- The PCDA will hold two 5-day sessions, in a manner that allows for
structured in-depth discussions, on all 111 proposals made so far, during
the sessions of the IIM and PCDA in 2005 and 2006 respectively, taking into
account the decision of the 2005 General Assembly, on the deadline for
submission of new proposals.

-- As done during the sessions of the PCDA in 2006, WIPO will provide
financing for the participation of representatives from developing countrie=
s
including LDCs as well as from countries with economies in transition, to
attend the meetings of the PCDA.

-- The first session of the PCDA in 2007 will consider the proposals
attached in Annex A. The second session of the PCDA in 2007 will consider
the proposals as attached in Annex B.

-- In order to facilitate the task and streamline the process for detailed
examination of all proposals in an inclusive manner, the PCDA should
undertake an exercise:

(a) to narrow down the proposals, in order to ensure that there is no
repetition or duplication;

(b) to separate the proposals which are actionable, from those which are
declarations of general principles and objectives; and

( c) to note those proposals which relate to existing activities in WIPO an=
d
those which do not.

-- In this regard, the Chair of the General Assembly will, in consultation
with Member States, produce initial working documents.

-- The PCDA will report to the 2007 General Assembly, with recommendations
for action on the agreed proposals, and on a framework for continuing to
address, and where possible to move forward, on the other proposals
following the 2007 General Assembly.

-- In the interim, and without prejudice to the provision of technical
assistance, the PCIPD will cease to exist.

Annex A contains the 40 proposals listed in a paper presented by the Chair
of the PCDA Ambassador Rigoberto Gauto Vielman of Paraguay at the last PCDA
(and when rejected by several members was adopted by the Kyrgyz Republic).
Annex B contains the remaining 71 proposals.

The decision on the work-plan on patents that was adopted states that
"delegations may submit, by December 2006, proposals for the work program o=
f
the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) including proposals on
ways forward or approaches". Then "proposals will be circulated in
consolidated form to all Member States".

It further states that "the Chair of the General Assembly will conduct
informal consultations in the first half of 2007 for the purpose of
discussing the proposals and recommending a work plan for the SCP to the
General Assembly in September 2007.

"In this regard, the Chair will decide the form of the consultations, which
shall be inclusive, and whether it is desirable to hold informal
consultations in a meeting of all member States."

Finally, "the General Assembly in September 2007 will consider the results
of the consultations with a view to establishing a work plan for the SCP fo=
r
2008 and 2009".

Of the three issues, the Development Agenda item had proved the most
difficult to resolve. The difficulty was compounded when Group B (comprisin=
g
developed countries) submitted a controversial text at a very late stage (i=
.
e. on Friday afternoon).

The Chair then convened closed-door consultations with a few delegations,
including the US, Brazil, Argentina (coordinator of the Group of Friends of
Development), Indonesia (coordinator of the Asian Group), and Nigeria
(coordinator of the African Group), on Friday evening and Saturday morning.

The Group B proposal made significant changes to the draft text proposed by
the Chair of the Assembly.

The essential elements of the Chair's text were: (I) renewal of the PCDA
mandate for another year; (ii) the holding of either two or three sessions
on proposals made so far on the Development Agenda; (iii) assisting
countries to finance their participation; (iv) tasking the PCDA to undertak=
e
(a) exercise of narrowing down the proposals to ensure that there is no
repetition or duplication, (b) separating the proposals which are
practicable and actionable from those which are declarations of general
principles and objectives, and ( c) identifying the proposals which are
already within the mandate and programs of WIPO and suggest how they can be
better integrated and made more effective in the work of those programs; (v=
)
recommending concrete proposals to the 2007 GA with specific recommendation=
s
for concrete action on the proposals on which there is general agreement to
move forward and on the future process regarding the other proposals; and
(vi) in the interim the PCIPD will cease to exist.

Group B's text proposed to delete elements (I), (ii) and iv ( c). It
proposed the convening of a meeting in early 2007 to narrow down the
proposals to ensure that there is no repetition or duplication and
separating the proposals which are practicable and actionable from those
which are declarations of general principles and objectives. It added that
to facilitate this, the "International Bureau (WIPO Secretariat) under the
direction of the Chair will produce initial working documents".

If there is agreement during the first meeting, the "PCDA shall convene
another session to further examine all the propositions, dedicating half of
the session to propositions on which consensus could emerge in the short
term and the other half of the session to propositions that require further
in-depth discussion".

It further proposed that the "PCDA would report to the 2007 General Assembl=
y
with specific recommendations - that identify the proposals which are
already within the mandate and programs of WIPO and suggest how they can be
better integrated and made more effective in the work of those WIPO
programs"; "concrete action of the proposals on which there is general
agreement to move forward and the future process regarding the other
proposals".

Many developing country delegates were not happy with the text proposed by
Group B. During the small group consultations with the Chair, several
countries insisted that the text state clearly that the mandate is to be
renewed.

The decision to discuss in the first PCDA the 40 proposals in the paper by
the Kyrgyz Republic and the remaining proposals in the second PCDA was a
compromise, as Group B wanted to proceed on the 40 proposals while
sidelining the proposals of the Group of Friends of Development, many of
which are not found in the Kyrgyz paper. The GFOD, on the other hand, wante=
d
all 111 proposals to be discussed and to be treated on an equal footing.

Another contentious issue was who should take the responsibility for
preparing the initial working documents for the PCDA. During the
consultations, some delegations were hesitant to leave the preparation of
the working documents for the PCDA meetings solely to the Secretariat. As a
result, the task has fallen onto the Chair of the Assembly to prepare the
initial working documents in consultation with Member States.

The distrust that many WIPO Members have in the Secretariat arises from
their perception that the Secretariat is not "neutral". On several previous
occasions, the Secretariat has been known to promote certain agendas that i=
t
sees is in its interest.

During the open-ended informal consultations, there was also debate over
what "practicable" and "actionable" means. There was general agreement
during the informal consultation that the word "practicable" should be
deleted.

A delegation privately commented that WIPO is actually already doing many o=
f
the items mentioned in the proposals and as such there is no need for such
proposals. This was perhaps the rationale behind element (iv) ( c) in the
Chair's text.

However, some other delegations saw this as an attempt to remove many of th=
e
111 proposals on the excuse that the WIPO Secretariat is actually already
implementing those proposals and as such not much needs to be done, and tha=
t
only suggestions are needed to better integrate and make them more
effective.

Thus, as a compromise the adopted decision only states that the PCDA is to
"note those proposals which relate to existing activities in WIPO and which
do not".

The adopted decision also states that the PCDA is to report to the 2007 GA
with recommendations for action on the "agreed" proposals. This term is
important as it expressly states that "recommendations for action" will onl=
y
be made on proposals that are "agreed", as opposed to "on which there is
general agreement", found in the text proposed by the Chair and Group B.

Regarding WIPO's work plan on patents, given the inability to break the dee=
p
impasse in the past few years on formulating a work plan on the SCP, the
WIPO Members generally felt that to convene a SCP session in the coming yea=
r
would be futile.

In fact, several developed countries felt that it was premature to proceed
with any meetings (formal or informal) of the SCP. They were referring to
the original draft text proposed by the Chair, Ambassador Enrique Manalo of
Philippines, which had the additional step of "an informal session of the
SCP" to be held in the first half of 2007.

A developed-country delegation said during an informal consultation on
patents that it was not interested in "holding meetings for the sake of
having meetings."

This led to the substitution of that paragraph. The Chair suggested that he
would conduct the informal consultations after the submission of proposals
in December 2006. He added that following the informal consultations, he
will decide whether an informal SCP session should be convened. As there wa=
s
no objection, this approach was taken in the decision on the work plan of
the SCP.

(The decision on the broadcasting treaty is reported on in a separate
article.) +


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