De: Robin Gross <robin@ipjustice.org>
Date: Jeu 14 juil 2005 17:01:45 Europe/Paris
À: Robin Gross <robin@ipjustice.org>
Objet: ATTENTION *** piece jointe refusee (executable) ****
Message-Id: <42D67E59.6080809@ipjustice.org>
Organization: IP Justice
Dear colleagues,
Apologies for the cross-posting, but ....
Attached and below is a statement for publication at next week's WIPO
Development Agenda Meeting. Civil society groups are invited to
sign-on to the statement to show support for reform at WIPO, and
specifically, support for the Friends of Development proposal.
Background info on the WIPO Development Agenda meeting is posted at:
http://www.ipjustice.org/WIPO/WIPO_DA.shtml
If your NGO would like to sign-on in support of this statement, please
send me an email (robin@ipjustice.org) and indicate the NGO name and
country in which your NGO is based.
Please send your support for this statement by TUESDAY 19 JULY so we
can publish this on Wednesday JULY 20th at the beginning of 3rd IIM of
the Development Agenda meeting at WIPO.
And please distribute this statement as widely as possible and
encourage other groups to please sign-on, so we can show the WIPO
delegates that public-interest groups support reform at WIPO.
Within the next day or so, this group statement (and translations)
will also be posted to the web at:
http://www.ipjustice.org/WIPO/NGO_Statement.shtml
and supporting NGO names will be added there as they come in.
Our statement would be much more effective if we had it translated
into other languages - particularly Spanish, French, German, Italian,
and Portuguese. If anyone is able to translate this document into any
of these languages (or others), please let me know asap. We'd like to
distribute hard-copies of these translations at the 20-22 July meeting
also, so will need the translations completed by the 19th so we can
make copies in Geneva for distribution on the 20th.
Thank you!!
Robin Gross
robin@ipjustice.org
IP Justice
===============================================
We, the undersigned public interest non-governmental organizations
support the adoption of the proposal submitted by the Group of Friends
of Development (FoD) for a Development Agenda at the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Specifically, we call attention to the following principles in the FoD
proposal and recommend that Member States:
1. AMEND THE WIPO CONVENTION (1967) TO EXPRESSLY INCORPORATE A
DEVELOPMENT DIMENSION, CONSISTENT WITH WIPO OBLIGATIONS AS A UN AGENCY
Public interest NGOs fully support Proposal 1 of the adopted Work Plan
(Annex to Summary of Chair), which proposes amending the WIPO
Convention to include explicit language incorporating a development
dimension and the specific language for such change set forth in
WO/GA/31/11, appendix 3.
The 1974 agreement between the United Nations and WIPO established
WIPO as a specialized agency of the UN family with responsibility for
“promoting creative intellectual activity and for facilitating the
transfer of technology related to industrial property to the
developing countries in order to accelerate economic, social and
cultural development, subject to the competence and responsibilities
of the United Nations and its organs . . . .”
Amending WIPO’s mandate will enhance and inscribe a development
dimension into the organization’s core, ensuring WIPO will maintain
its responsibility to the UN and promote the public interest, first
and foremost.
2. CONSIDER ELABORATION OF A TREATY ON ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE AND
TECHNOLOGY
We fully support Proposal 3 of the adopted Work Plan that calls on
Member States to consider elaboration of a Treaty on Access to
Knowledge and Technology.
Access to knowledge and information sharing are fundamental to
education and research and to fostering innovation and creativity. A
treaty setting out user freedoms would address “the need to maintain a
balance between the rights of authors and the larger public interest,
particularly education, research and access to information, as
reflected in the Berne Convention” as set out in the Preamble to the
WIPO Copyright Treaty.
A treaty on access to knowledge and technology would be a key
component in policy interventions to alleviate the situation in
disadvantaged countries and would be of benefit to the overall
socio-economic and political development of a country.
3. ESTABLISH AN INDEPENDENT WIPO EVALUATION AND RESEARCH OFFICE (WERO)
Public interest NGOs fully support Proposal 5 of the adopted Work Plan
that calls for the establishment of WERO.
The creation of an independent research office that would report
directly to the General Assembly is an important component to the
reform mandated by the General Assembly’s adoption of the Development
Agenda. The creation of WERO would strengthen the oversight function
of Member States at WIPO, enhance the credibility of WIPO and its
programmess, and would comply with established international practice
in other organizations such as the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund.
As set forth in the FoD Proposal, the establishment of WERO would
provide a transparent, independent and objective body that would
evaluate all WIPO programmes and activities with respect to their
development impact in general and their impact on innovation,
creativity and dissemination of knowledge and technology; assess the
development impact of all proposed norm-setting activities in WIPO;
and monitor and evaluate all WIPO technical assistance activities
based on guidelines established by the General Assembly.
4. ADOPT PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES FOR THE TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
PROGRAMME
We fully support the proposals which relate to Technical Assistance.
These are Proposal 4 to Formulate and Adopt Principles and Guidelines
for the Development and Implementation of Technical Assistance;
Proposal 10 to Improve Information Sharing on Technical Assistance;
and Proposal 14 to Develop Indicators and Benchmarks for the
Evaluation of WIPO Technical Assistance.
We believe that these proposals would enhance the value of technical
assistance to developing countries by providing opportunities to
review technical assistance programmes and keep them fresh, to include
new or alternative business and software models and to ensure that a
cross-section of stakeholder interests are represented. Consultation
with a wide range of groups such as libraries, educators, people with
disabilities and consumers, as well as creators and rightsholders
would help to build capacity and improve governance, a key component
of the 2005 Report of the Commission for Africa.
5. REFORM WIPO NORMS AND PRACTICES:
A. Weigh the costs and benefits of copyright, patent and trademark
rights
Public interest NGOs fully support Proposal 7 of the adopted Work Plan
to formulate and adopt principles and guidelines for norm-setting
activities in WIPO. WIPO must acknowledge the costs and benefits of
both information monopolies and harmonization.
Continuously expanding the scope and level of copyright, patent and
trademark rights creates real social and economic costs. Norm-setting
activities must follow guidelines that balance public access and
competition policies against monopoly rights in knowledge and
information, and that weigh the economic cost of maintaining and
enforcing these systems against the relative benefits in each country.
In order to reach effective results that meet the challenges of global
development, internationally agreed upon developmental standards
should serve as benchmarks for WIPO norm-setting activities to meet.
The United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which all 191 UN
Member States have pledged to meet, establish development standards
that copyright, patent and trademark laws should seek to facilitate.
B. Copyright, patent and trademark rights are not ends in themselves
and must foster the public goals of innovation, creativity and
technical development
Public interest NGOs fully support Proposal 8 of the adopted Work Plan
to undertake independent, evidence-based “development impact
assessments.”
International instruments recognize the underlying public goals of
copyright, patent and trademark laws. The WIPO Copyright Treaty
recognizes that copyright law serves “to maintain a balance between
the interests of authors and the larger public interest, particularly
education, research, and access to information.” Trade Related
Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Art. 7 explicitly stipulates
a balanced and harmonious outlook between these rights and the public
interest.
It is essential that copyright, patent and trademark rights foster
innovation, creativity and technical development. WIPO must adopt a
framework that can ensure that these information monopolies advance
public goals in developing countries. The FoD proposal for a
Development Agenda at WIPO provides an excellent blueprint to begin
this reform.
C. “One size (XL) fits all” approach to copyright, patent and
trademark rights does not foster development in all countries
International norms for copyright, patent and trademark rights need to
take into account different levels of development to ensure that the
primary rationale for granting the rights, to promote societal
development by encouraging technological innovation, is actually
accomplished.
Expansive copyright, patent and trademark rights disproportionately
favor wealthy developed countries and perpetuate the current imbalance
in access to and control of knowledge and information. Copyright,
patent and trademark laws must reflect each country’s development
needs to better facilitate access to information and knowledge
throughout the world. Such access is strongly called for in the “Doha
Plan of Action” agreed by the Heads of State and Government of the
Group of 77 and China and in the “Declaration of Principles” of the
World Summit on the Information Society .
All countries have a right to make their own economic development
strategies, which are inherently value based. Articles 1 and 8 of
TRIPS recognize both national sovereignty concerning development
strategies and national values. WIPO’s “one-size-fits-all” approach
improperly assumes that western intellectual property policy embodies
universal values.
D. Copyright, patent and trademark laws need to protect
flexibilities and limitations
International instruments and developed countries’ own copyright,
trademark and patent laws provide for flexibilities and limitations
that ensure the promotion of social values. Competition policy,
compulsory licenses for medicine, and fair use exceptions demonstrate
that monopoly rights can be curtailed to achieve public benefits.
Countries need to have policy space to meet national developmental
priorities. Creative expression is value driven and copyright, patent
and trademark law governs what type of creative expression is either
permissible or infringing, and what type of creative expression is
“protectable” and to what extent. Since all Member States have a
natural right to exercise their own values and the legal system is the
principal means through which society can assert its values, all
nations have a natural right to make value choices regarding their own
level of copyright, patent and trademark rights.
WIPO technical assistance should promote the full range of
flexibilities provided by TRIPS, including education and promotion of
non-proprietary free and open access development models.
E. More transparent and Member driven with ongoing public interest
participation
Public interest NGOs fully support Proposals 6 and 9 of the adopted
Work Plan which, respectively, seek to ensure wider participation of
public interest NGOs at WIPO, and to establish a system of holding
public hearings prior to the initiation of norm-setting activities.
The FoD proposal initiates an important dialogue on making fundamental
changes to ensure that WIPO is truly Member driven, as the majority of
WIPO constituents are from developing countries. In order to progress
as a Member-driven organization, WIPO must address the development
concerns of its Members in all aspects of its work.
