WIPO Creates, Seeks To Fill Top Posts Targeting Economic, Global Challenges

By Kaitlin Mara
The World Intellectual Property Organization has advertised a range of top positions, including head of the Internal Audit Section, chef de cabinet (director of the director general’s office) and his/her deputy, a chief information officer, a human resources director, a chief economist and an official responsible for global challenges such as climate change.

The chief economist position [pdf] reflects the director general’s belief that the secretariat “needs to be better equipped with resources for economic research and statistics in order to provide the member states with a sound empirical basis for the reflection,” as he stated in his 22 September acceptance speech. The creation of the position reflects an increased focus on empirical data on the impact of the intellectual property system on economic development.

The official responsible for global challenges will be the Director of the Global Challenges Division [pdf], a new unit at WIPO. The creation of this unit reflects an increasing number of worldwide priorities which could be addressed by technology and thus by policies which serve to foster innovation and the dissemination of inventions. The new unit will “anticipate and address the intersection of intellectual property issues with global policy challenges” and will include issues of climate change, food security, and biodiversity, and other issues that arise.

WIPO also has named a new controller, Philippe Favatier. The previous controller, Carlotta Graffigna, moved to become executive director/advisor to Michael Keplinger, deputy director general for copyright and enforcement.

David Lammy has been named the new minister of state for Higher Education and Intellectual Property with the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office. The former undersecretary of state for Intellectual Property and Quality, Delyth Morgan is now with the Department for Children, Schools and Families. This represents further reshuffling in the UK cabinet as European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson left his position to accept an invitation to serve as the United Kingdom’s secretary of state for business, enterprise and regulatory reform.

Catherine Ashton on 6 October became Europe’s new trade commissioner. Ashton was a member of the UK House of Lords and previously held senior positions as parliamentary under-secretaries in education, constitutional affairs and justice. Among past duties were information rights and freedom of information, and international trade.

Trevor Clarke, ambassador from Barbados, is the new chair of the World Trade Organization Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council Special Sessions on Geographical Indications, or product names associated with a particular place and characteristics. He replaces former ambassador of Pakistan Manzoor Ahmad, who is now with the Food and Agriculture Organization liaison office in Geneva. Trinidad and Tobago’s Ambassador Dennis Francis is the new chair of the overall TRIPS Council, replacing Jamaica’s Gail Marie Mathurin, who was called back to Kingston over the summer.

Martin Khor, the current director of the Geneva-based non-profit Third World Network, was appointed the next executive director of the intergovernmental South Centre, effective in 1 March 2009, according to a South Centre release. It is unclear who will succeed Khor at TWN, which he has run since it began in 1984.

Ermias Biadgleng is the new legal expert in the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) intellectual property team. Prior to joining UNCTAD, he was a programme officer for the South Centre’s Innovation and Access to Knowledge Programme. Ermias holds a masters in law from the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) and a bachelor of laws from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia.

Also joining UNCTAD’s intellectual property team is Fleur Claessens, who is coming from the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), where she worked as programme officer on intellectual property rights and sustainable development. She will be working as a training officer in UNCTAD’s policy and capacity building section at the technology and logistics department in issues of knowledge sharing, training, and capacity development.

Claudia Sarocco has left the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), where she worked in information, computer and communications policy, to join an Italian law firm. Michael Donohue, the administrator of the Committee on Consumer Policy, will take her place.

Susan Crowley retired from pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck in August, where she worked on as the director for international organisation relations. She has established a firm called Multilateral Consulting, and is now helping companies to work with the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

Catherine Bennett, who was senior vice president of the National Foreign Trade Council leading their IP project since October of last year, has left to head governmental affairs at Tyco International in Washington, DC. Before joining the NFTC, Bennett was a partner at law firm Venable, and was vice president of government relations at Pfizer.

Michelle Childs, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) head of European affairs, who worked extensively on issues of access to medications and access to knowledge while at KEI, is leaving to join Médecins Sans Frontières Access to Medicines campaign.

IQsensato hired over the summer Nicoletta Dentico, formerly the policy and advocacy manager at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), as an advisor in public health, innovation, and intellectual property.

US law firm Crowell & Moring named Flip Petillion partner in the firm’s Brussels-based intellectual property group. Petillion formerly ran the intellectual property, information and communications technology and media practices division at law firm Janson Baugniet, also in Brussels.

And the “IP Hall of Fame,” a project of Intellectual Asset Management magazine honouring people who have made significant contributions to intellectual property policy, has announced its candidates for induction for the year 2008. They are: Jane Ginsburg, professor at Columbia Law School, Francis Gurry, the new WIPO director general, Dolores Hanna, the first female president of the International Trademark Association, Michael Kirk, who recently retired from the AIPLA, and Niels Reimers, who developed a model that US universities use in technology transfer.

Kaitlin Mara may be reached at kmara@ip-watch.ch.