Musungu, Marchant Team Up; US Sends IP Attachés To China, Russia

By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen
What is next for the former director of the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office and the former head of the South Centre intellectual property programme; who is temporarily acting in the role of lead on intellectual property issues at the South Centre; who are the US officials being appointed IP attachés around the world; who has launched a new global trade programme, and who is taking over the helm at the international seed industry? All of this and more in the updated Intellectual Property Watch People column.

The Geneva-based intergovernmental organisation the South Centre announced the appointment of Li Xuan of China as lead economist for the Innovation and Access to Knowledge Programme. Li was most recently a research fellow at the World Trade Institute in Bern, Switzerland, a visiting professor in economics at Hunan University, China, and a senior research fellow at the Centre of Intellectual Property Rights, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, China. She has also experience with China’s Ministry of Commerce and the Asian Development Bank. Li also will serve as acting coordinator of the programme, filling in after the departure of Sisule Musungu, who was abruptly asked to leave in February allegedly after challenging the personnel actions of South Centre Executive Director Yash Tandon, according to documents (IPW, 16 February 2007). The South Centre was not able to provide a comment on this issue at press time.

Meanwhile, Musungu is, among other things, working on a research project on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) together with former head of the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office, Ron Marchant. Marchant will be the keynote speaker at the European Patent Conference in Brussels on 15-16 June, along with William Kovacic, commissioner, Federal Trade Commission (US). Marchant also is working on a project with the European Union, the objective of which is to identify potential barriers to use of IP by small and medium-sized enterprises and to make practical recommendations. It is scheduled for completion in June.

At the US Patent and Trademark Office, Conrad Wong has been selected to serve as an intellectual property officer on a limited appointment with the Department of Commerce (DOC) Commercial Service in Guangzhou, China, and Tracy Pirella of DOC’s International Trade Administration has been selected to serve as an IPR officer on a limited appointment with the Commercial Service in Moscow. Both are expected to be posted sometime prior to the end of September 2007. In the meantime, they are undergoing consultations and training to prepare them for their postings.

Carolyn Deere has been appointed director of a new Global Trade Governance Project set up at Oxford University (UK). The aim of the programme, which was launched on 3 May by Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry, Kamal Nath, is to foster research and debate into making global trade governance work for development, particularly timely for the stalled Doha Round negotiations at the World Trade Organization. The project will draw on experts in international relations, political science, development studies, economics and international law, as well as policy practitioners, especially from developing countries, it said. A programme entitled the Geneva Lectures on Global Economic Governance will be launched in May in collaboration with the University of Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International Studies (HEI), and in 2007-2008, research seminars will be held at universities and research centres in Brazil, China, India and South Africa. The project has financial support from the Ford Foundation and the Geneva International Academic Network, and collaborates with the Geneva-based International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, HEI and the South Centre. Deere is chair of the board of Intellectual Property Watch. Nath’s address is available here [.doc].

The former lead US congressman on international trade, Bill Thomas, has been appointed senior advisor to the law firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney’s federal government relations section. Thomas, who retired from Congress at the end of last term, served 24 years at the House of Representative’s Ways and Means Committee, first as chair of the Health Subcommittee and for the last six years as chair of the full committee. Alex Brill has been appointed economic policy advisor to the firm, He has worked with Thomas for five years and was senior advisor to the chairman and chief economist for the Ways and Means Committee.

David Ross has joined the committee staff of US Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who is the ranking member (highest Republican office) of the Senate Finance Committee, which leads on trade issues. As international trade counsel, intellectual property rights rank among the issues Ross will be working on, but other areas include issues involving Europe and China, services, financial services, investment and WTO dispute settlement issues. Ross joins from the Office of the US Trade Representative in Washington, DC. Several other Grassley staff appointments were announced, including some with strong backgrounds in investigative work, perhaps a harbinger of upcoming congressional activity.

The Federal Communications Commission (US) has appointed Rick Chessen senior legal adviser. Chessen, who has been with the FCC since 1994, was most recently associate chief of its media bureau.

The International Seed Federation (ISF) has appointed Marcel Bruins as the secretary general designate. He will succeed incumbent Bernard le Buanec, who will retire shortly after the ISF Congress in Prague in May 2008. The intention is, the ISF said, that Bruins will begin his involvement from 1 September and officially take over as secretary general on 1 January 2008, with le Buanec staying on in a full-time advisory and management support capacity until May 2008. Marcel will join the ISF secretariat in Nyon, Switzerland.

At its 15th board meeting on 25-27 April, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria elected Rajat Gupta, former managing director of McKinsey & Company, its new chair, succeeding Carol Jacobs. Elizabeth Mataka, who heads a Zambian AIDS organisation, was elected vice chair, succeeding Lieve Fransen. Mataka will represent developing country non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on the board. She has been working in the field of HIV/AIDS for the past 16 years and has experience in the public sector, private sector and NGOs. Born in India and an American citizen, Gupta is the second American to chair the Global Fund after Tommy Thompson, who chaired the Fund while serving as US Secretary of Health and Human Services. Professor Sir Richard Feachem has stepped down as the Global Fund’s executive director, and was succeeded in April by professor Michel Kazatchkine. In mid-February, the total amount entrusted to the Fund to date topped the $10 billion mark, it said.

The international football star, Samuel Eto’o, originally from Cameroon and now playing for FC Barcelona, pledged his commitment to the fight against sleeping sickness and other neglected tropical diseases at a WHO meeting with partners on 19-20 April. Such diseases affect one-sixth of the world’s population.

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