[Ip-health] KEI intervention at the WIPO Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP)

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://www.keionline.org/index.php?option=3Dcom_jd-wp&Itemid=3D39

KEI Statement to the WIPO Committee on Development and Intellectual
Property (CDIP)

March 3, 2008

Thank you Ambassador. As this is the first time Knowledge Ecology
International is taking the floor, please let me congratulate you upon
your election to the chair. Today everyone agrees that the WIPO
mission is not simply about expanding intellectual property rights.
Topics such as access to knowledge, the implications and benefits of a
rich and accessible public domain, and strategies for dealing with
abuses of rights, or other measures to protect the public interest,
are part of the agenda. So too will be thoughtful evaluation of new
methods of supporting creativity and invention, including those that
rely upon openness, sequential innovation, and collaboration.

With respect to recommendation 19 on access to knowledge, we welcome
the Friends of Development suggestion to =93organize an open forum for
discussion=94 inviting relevant international organizations and non-
governmental organizations. Innovation and development are predicated
upon access to knowledge. The original Friends of Development proposal
in 2004 called for an =93elaboration of a treaty access to knowledge and
technology=94. We believe an open forum would be a welcome first step.
Additional measures should include discussions within the SCCR, SCP
and CDIP, of the possible areas where global norms on access to
knowledge would be appropriate and consistent with the mission of
WIPO. Next week the SCCR will be looking at the topic of limitations
and exceptions in the field of copyright, and the conversation about a
potential treaty on access to knowledge and technology should benefit
from this important discussion. For example, it may be interesting for
WIPO to consider global norms to facilitate access to orphaned
copyrighted works, or to facilitate the development of cross-border
services for the visually impaired, or for distance education, three
areas where the SCCR could do substantive work.

We welcome the adoption of recommendation 36 which calls upon WIPO to
=93exchange experiences on open collaborative projects such as the Human
Genome Project as well as on IP models=94 particularly in view of the
letter (7 July 2003) from academics, civil society and the private
sector to WIPO requesting the organization to convene a meeting on
open and collaborative projects.

We hope that WIPO creates a forum on the control of anticompetitive
practices in both the patent and copyright fields, and considered also
problems of implementing Article 40 of the TRIPS agreement.

Much of the development agenda discussions concern the issue of impact
assessments. KEI recommends that the WIPO Secretariat survey member
states on the systems they now use to undertake impact assessments and
economic analysis in the area of intellectual property legal norms and
practices. Our suggestion is that WIPO create an economics bureau that
can respond to research requests from member states. The member states
should frame the research questions, and the responses from the
economic bureau should be objective, and subject to peer review.

Thank you for your consideration.




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Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
thiru@keionline.org


Tel: +41 22 791 6727
Mobile: +41 76 508 0997