About Us

MISSION

Intellectual Property Watch, a non-profit independent news service, reports on the interests and behind-the-scenes dynamics that influence the design and implementation of international intellectual property policies.

REPORTING SERVICES

Intellectual Property Watch’s reporting is available in two formats:

Online: news stories and features are regularly posted in a dynamic weblog format and archived on the Intellectual Property Watch website. Readers can keep up-to-date via email notifications, RSS feed, Facebook or Twitter. Subscribers receive access to restricted content, including latest stories, special reports, People news and other benefits. See the website front page to learn more about Subscribing.
Monthly: a 16-page monthly edition produced from November 2004 to January 2011 includes a selection of news stories, features, briefs and news about people in the IP community. Available to subscribers, the monthly is online with a searchable archive. Limited past editions are available in print. Those interested in a monthly version of IP-Watch news may sign up for email alerts received once per month listing all posts during the period.

FUNDING

Intellectual Property Watch is funded through subscriptions and by grants from private philanthropic foundations. Intellectual Property Watch currently has funding from the Ford Foundation, and the Open Society Institute. Past funding was provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Loterie Romande, Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, and Rockefeller Foundation.

Intellectual Property Watch does not accept financial support from anonymous donors or from private corporations (except in the form of subscriptions to our reporting services).

STAFF

Director/Editor-in-Chief: Mr William E. New (wnew [at] ip-watch [dot] ch)

William New has been on the reporting forefront of most major international intellectual property policy developments for over a decade. William joined Intellectual Property Watch as Director and Editor-in-Chief in January 2005, with primary responsibility for the writing, editing, publishing, management, and finances of the organisation. Prior to that, he spent nearly five years as a senior writer and editor for the National Journal Group in Washington, and three years as a senior reporter at Washington-based Inside U.S. Trade and managing editor of Americas Trade.

During that time, William covered developments at United Nations bodies such as the World Intellectual Property Organization, World Health Organization, International Telecommunication Union, and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) as well as the World Trade Organization, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Hague Conference on Private International Law, and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Coverage also included a full range of regional bodies worldwide. William also has closely reported on the activities of the US Congress and key US administration agencies, and has analysed numerous legal decisions. While at National Journal, he worked briefly as an editor for a former National Journal project, UN Wire, an online publication on the United Nations.

William’s coverage has focused on global intellectual property concerns in areas such as international trade and the promulgation and enforcement of copyright, patent and trademark laws and agreements. He has closely tracked free trade negotiations at the bilateral, regional and multilateral levels, including North American and European bilateral deals, the Free Trade Area of the Americas and WTO negotiations. At the WTO, issues also include enforcement and updating of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), accessions and dispute settlement cases.

William has also followed intellectual property issues in the context of debates on information and communications technology including global internet governance, open source, digital rights management, and internet domain names. His coverage of science issues has spanned research and development, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and open standards.

William is an accredited journalist at the World Trade Organization and the United Nations in Geneva, and a member of the Swiss press association Impressum, the Club de la Presse Suisse, and the Association of Correspondents Accredited to the United Nations (ACANU) in Geneva. From March 2010 to March 2011, William served as Secretary of ACANU.

Earlier in his career, William was at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, where he managed a North American Free Trade Agreement partnership programme, and conducted outreach and marketing for the Center for Latin American Studies. Prior to that he spent six months on a fellowship in Guatemala, operating an aid project in the highlands to help the Ixil and Quiché people rebuild their communities, and studied two Mayan dialects for nearly two years.

Expert appearances on television and radio include CNBC, National Public Radio, and C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. William regularly participates in panels such as at the OECD, European Patent Office, the Library of Alexandria, Egypt, and in the field of access to knowledge, and also provides field training in policy communications. He also is a contributor to Oxford Analytica. William holds a Master’s degree in Latin American Economics and Political Science and an MBA in International Management and Marketing from the University of New Mexico, as well as a BA in English from Oberlin College. He is fluent in Spanish, has working French and some German.

William is a Visiting Fellow at the Yale University Law School Information Society Project.

Administrator/Senior Writer: Ms Catherine Saez (csaez [at] ip-watch [dot] ch)

Catherine Saez joined Intellectual Property Watch in June 2006. She is responsible for reporting and writing stories on a variety of topics and is in charge of office administration and the outreach programme.

Catherine worked for the previous ten years translating and copy editing publications, managing databases and providing administrative support for non-governmental organisations in the field of development and human rights. Before that, she worked in the industrial sector as an executive secretary.

Catherine, a native of France, holds an administrative degree from the Ecole Nationale de Commerce in Paris as well as a certificate of Proficiency in English from Cambridge University. She also completed a small business management course at Scarlett Oaks Career Campus in Cincinnati (United States), where she spent three years and got involved in many community projects. She is currently learning Spanish.

Catherine was a press correspondent for the last 7 years for a local newspaper. She is fluent in French, English and has elemental Spanish. Catherine is an accredited journalist at the World Trade Organization and the United Nations in Geneva, and a member of the Swiss press association Impressum.

Webmaster: Mr Claude Vedovini (webmaster [at] ip-watch [dot] ch)

The ongoing development and the maintenance of the Intellectual Property Watch website is handled by Claude Vedovini, an external consultant who can be found at vedovini.net.

From 2004 to mid-2009, the website was created and maintained by Olivier Tripet, http://www.b-spirit.com/. From mid-2009 until early 2010, the site was maintained by John Kirkwood, www.kclinfo.com.

Contributing Writers

To conduct its reporting activities, Intellectual Property Watch has forged partnerships with a network of contributing credentialed journalists, particularly at the regional level. Interested writers should contact William New at wnew [at] ip-watch [dot] ch.

Contributing Writers:

Translators

Intellectual Property Watch has established a network of translators currently in French and Spanish. Some of our translators:

French:

Vanja Guérin
Griselda Jung
Marisa Marolda
Fanny Mourguet
Line-Marie Notter
Véronique Sauron
Aurélie Winter

Spanish:

Giselle Martinez de Melendez
Fernanda Nieto Femenia
Analin Pedroni

Arabic:

Mouhamed Fadal Mbacké

Chinese:

Yujun Lao

Internships / Researchers

Intellectual Property Watch frequently offers internships and research opportunities for individuals interested in independent journalism and intellectual property policymaking. In the past, many interns and researchers have come from Switzerland and the United States, as well as France, Kenya, Mauritius, Senegal and South Africa. There are currently no paid internships available, but interested candidates may contact info [at] ip-watch [dot] ch.

GOVERNANCE

Intellectual Property Watch was established in 2004 as a non-profit association under Swiss law. Based in Geneva, the work of Intellectual Property Watch is overseen by a Board of Directors. Board members serve in a personal and voluntary capacity for 2 year, renewable terms.

Board of Directors

Dr. Carolyn Deere, Chair and Founder (Australia)
Carolyn is a Senior Researcher at the Global Economic Governance Programme at the University of Oxford where she directs its project on the governance of the global trading system. Carolyn has worked and published on issues of sustainable development, trade and intellectual property for a range of non-governmental and international organizations. She was a member of an International Commission, sponsored by the UK’s Royal Society of Arts, which prepared the Adelphi Charter on Creativity, Innovation and Intellectual Property. She was previously Assistant Director in the Global Inclusion programme of the Rockefeller Foundation where she was responsible for grantmaking on intellectual property and trade, and Bellagio Series on Development and Intellectual Property Policy. Carolyn holds a DPhil (Oxon) and M.A. (SAIS) in International Relations.

Dr. Ruth Okediji (US)
Ruth is the William L. Prosser Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She has written and published extensively about intellectual property regulation, and the relationship between developed and developing countries in the international intellectual property system. Ruth received an LLM and SJD from Harvard Law School.

Ms. María Julia Oliva (Argentina)
Ms. María Julia Oliva is Senior Adviser for Access and Benefit Sharing at the Union for Ethical BioTrade. Previously, she was Senior Programme Officer for Trade, Environment and Natural Resources at the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD). Julia also worked as a legal consultant for the UNCTAD BioTrade Facilitation Programme and served as the Director of the Intellectual Property and Sustainable Development Project at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). She is a member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law and a Research Associate at IQSensanto. Julia earned an LLM Degree in Environmental Law from Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College and a law degree at the University of Mendoza in Argentina.

Mr. Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz (Colombia)
Ricardo is a co-founder of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and its Chief Executive since 1996. A Harvard University graduate, he previously co-founded and was Director General of Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (Quito, Ecuador), and served as Colombian negotiator for GATT’s Uruguay Round, the UNCED and several other international processes.

Dr. Susan K. Sell (US)
Susan is currently Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University, Washington, DC and Director of the Institute for Global and International Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs. She has published widely on the politics and history of international policy debates on intellectual property and technology transfer.

Mr. Matthew Stilwell (Australia)
Matthew is currently Managing Director at the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development. He was formerly a legal counsel to UNEP’s Economics and Trade Branch in Geneva, and a Managing Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law where he led its work on intellectual property and sustainable development. He holds an LLM from Columbia University School of Law.

Intellectual Property Watch also benefits from the advice and support of an informal council of advisers comprised of leading international authorities on intellectual property, sustainable development, science and technology, and transparency and accountability in global governance.

CONTACT US

Intellectual Property Watch
P.O. Box 2100
1-5, route des Morillons
1211 Geneva 2
Switzerland
Phone: +41 (0)22 791 67 16
Fax: +41 (0)22 791 66 35
Email: info [at] ip-watch [dot] ch

Intellectual Property Watch is a registered trademark.

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