At the recent UN Internet Governance Forum in Athens, a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) representative said there is a “new emphasis on limitations and exceptions to copyright and user rights in areas such as freedom of expression and access to information.” But there is a need to promote interoperability of technology standards in areas such as digital rights management “as a way to avoid fragmentation of the online cultural market and as a way to bridge the digital divide and technological gap in developing countries.”

“Striking the right balance between rights and public policy goals has been one of the continuous objectives of our member states in negotiating international norms and laws under WIPO’s auspices,” it said, adding that an effort will be made to “empower” all countries to take advantage of the flexibilities in the international legal system and take into account the development dimension of intellectual property.

Statement of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Geneva, Switzerland

Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Athens, Greece, October 30 to November 2, 2006

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) welcomes the convening of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) stemming from the World Summit on the Information Society. WIPO has taken an active part in all stages of the WSIS and sees this new global initiative as a concrete step to build and further develop international understanding on a range of issues.

Continued and sustainable growth of the Information Society depends upon an environment of trust and security. Intellectual property (lP) plays a key, if complex, role to encourage creativity, innovation, fostering economic growth in both developed and developing countries. To policy-makers and regulators, the challenge today is to preserve the incentive to create new works and use new technologies to distribute them to users in the face of the huge competitive threat from illicit use of technology by infringers.

The increasing importance of intellectual property does not necessarily refer to new international rules. Indeed, the international standard for copyright in the digital environment is largely in place already, thanks to the adoption in 1996 of the WIPO Internet Treaties. which have provided legal responses to the challenges of the new digital technologies. The expected adoption in 2007 of the broadcasting treaty would further consolidate this framework.

This rather means that both lP owners and users need to have confidence that their rights and needs will be observed and that they can properly exercise and exploit intellectual property rules in the new environment. New licensing schemes and rights management models, the increasing development of collaborative initiatives for creating, transmitting and sharing creative content on line, the relationship of intellectual property and technology in areas such as standards and digital rights management (DRM), are examples of these initiatives on the exercise and enforcement of ri!!hts and their connection to teehnology.

Both individual creators and the creative industries have a great interest in seeing that access to content can take place for as many users and in as many formats as possible. Accessibility, usability, portability are new benchmarks by means of which creative content can be enjoyed continuously. Interoperability will increasingly play a key role in the development of efficient ICT standards and in ensuring that users fully reap the advantages of an interactive environment. This also puts a new emphasis on limitations and exceptions to copyright and user rights in areas such as freedom of expression and access to information. Interoperability of ICT standards will need to be further promoted especially in areas such as digital rights management (DRM), as a way to avoid fragmentation of the online cultural market and as a way to bridge the digital divide and the technological gap in developing countries.

Striking the right balance between rights and public policy goals has been one of the continuous objectiyes of our member states in negotiating international norms and laws under WIPO’s auspices. Recent member states proposals to introduce in the proposed broadcasting treaty, public interest clauses relating to the defense of competition, the protection of cultural diversity and access to knowledge reflect that concern.

This balance will continue to be pursued at the international level, while striving to empower all countries to take advantage of the flexibilities that haye been provided in the international legal system and continuously taking into account the development dimension of intellectual property as currently reflected in the ongoing discussions relating to a WIPO development agenda.

The Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) was proposed by WIPO and has become accepted as an international standard for resolviing domain name disputes. It is designed specifically to discourage and resolve the abusiye registration of trademarks as domain names disputes. WIPO’s experience shows that these are heavily concentrated in the .com domain, but attention must also be paid to the establishment of robust preventive mechanisms against abusive registration in new generic top level domains (gTLDs). The UDRP’s popularity stems from its cost-eftectiveness, the predictability of the process and swift enforcement of the results. Frequent users of the UDRP include the entertainment industry, pharmaceutical companies. IT firms and a significant munber of small-to-medium-sized businesses who favor the UDRP over traditional litigation, because they consider it to be a far quicker and cheaper way of protecting their trademark rights against cybersquatting.

The Internet Domain Name System (DNS) raises a number of challenges for the protection of intellectual property, which, due to the global nature of the Internet, call for an international approach. WIPO has addressed these challenges since 1998 by developing specific solutions., most notably in the First and Second WIPO Internet Domain Name Processes. In particular, the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (Center) provides trademark owners with an efficient international mechanism to deal with the bad-faith registration and use of domain names corresponding to their trademark rights.

The UDRP was adopted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on the basis of recommendations made by WIPO in the First WIPO Internet Domain Name Process. WIPO UDRP proceedings have so far involved parties from 131 countries and been conducted in 12 different languages. WlPO has made numerous contributions to help ensure fair and transparent UDRP procedures.

On a policy level, the Center has used its domain name dispute resolution experience in a report on the IP aspects of introducing gTLDs. This report, which had been prepared at the request of ICANN, recommends the establishment of a uniform mechanism designed to prevent the abusive registration of domain names during the introduction of new gTLDs. Such a preventive mechanism would be in addition to the curative relief option provided by the UDRP.

The Second WIPO Internet Domain Name Process concerned the relationship between domain names and fivee types of identifiers other than trademarks that had not been addressed in the First WIPO Internet Domain Name Process, namely, International Nonproprietary Names for pharmaceutical substances (INNs), the names and acronyms of international intergovernmental organizations (lGOs), personal names, geographical identifiers and trade names.

The IGF forum is addressing the implications for policymakers of a world where value lies increasingly in intellcctual rather than physical capital, and where access to knowledge is critical to many spheres of human activity, including human development. Through norm setting, technical assistance, capacity building, technology transfer, WlPO’ s whole range of activities are aimed at buiIding the necessary confidence to support and enhance the Iegitimate economic, cultural and social aspirations of all countries.