[Ip-health] AFP: World's patent system needs reform, experts say

[Sarah Rimmington]

Breaking News / Infotech
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/infotech/view_article.php?article_id=100757

World's patent system needs reform, experts say
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/infotech/view_article.php?article_id=100757
Agence France-Presse

Posted date: November 14, 2007

MANILA, Philippines--The world's patent system must be reformed to keep
pace with rapid technological, corporate and social changes that are
pressuring intellectual property rights, experts said Tuesday.

The reforms could include viewing patents not as a monopoly on
innovations but as a way of making information about them more widely
available, European Patent Office vice president Manuel Desantes told a
conference in Manila.

New technology, the concentration of patents in the hands of big
business and calls for more open access to patented technology --
including by poor countries for medicines -- were among the challenges
to be faced, he said.

The expert also warned the conference, which brings together the heads
of intellectual property offices from around the world, about the
dangers of piracy.

"Piracy is a cancer to a country. The more piracy, the less
development," Desantes said, adding the patent system should be made
entirely electronic to cope with the challenges it faced.

The conference's discussion agenda was the future of intellectual
property rights and the patent system protecting them.

Delegates said wealth today was measured by innovation and technological
know-how rather than just by factors such as land or energy resources.

Tomoko Miyamoto, a law counsellor for the World Intellectual Property
Organization, said research showed that about 80 percent of the market
value of some of the world's top companies comprised "intangible assets"
like patents.

Adrian Cristobal, head of the Philippines' intellectual property office,
said the patent system needed to be promoted in his country since only
1.2 percent of all patents in the Philippines were held by Filipinos.

--
Sarah Rimmington
Attorney
Essential Action, Access to Medicines Project
Washington, DC
Tel: (202) 387-8030
Cell: (202) 422-2687
www.essentialaction.org/access/