WIPO Works On Its Development Agenda Implementation This Week

Members of the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization this week are in discussions on how to ensure that WIPO activities are development-oriented. A particular focus will be the implementation of a Development Agenda coordination mechanism approved at the last session in May. Also new on the table this week is an agenda item on development-related issues and a proposal for a new project on cooperation between developing countries.

The 6th session of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) is meeting from 22-26 November.

The CDIP monitors the implementation of the 45 recommendations of the WIPO Development Agenda, approved in 2007. The coordination mechanism agreed at the May CDIP and approved at the WIPO General Assembly in September, states that “all WIPO Committees stand on equal footing and report to the Assemblies,” and also that “the coordination of the CDIP with other relevant WIPO bodies should be flexible, efficient, effective, transparent and pragmatic.”

Some countries deem that the coordination mechanism should have a wide spectrum and cover all WIPO committees while for others the relevance to the mechanism of some WIPO committees remains to be seen.

Today, Brazil, on behalf of the Development Agenda Group (DAG), submitted a text for a new agenda item [pdf]. Included in this proposal is the suggestion that the WIPO chief economist, Carsten Fink, present at the next session of the CDIP the main issues discussed during the WIPO seminar series on “The Economics of Intellectual Property,” and that he identify issues that could be relevant to the future work of the CDIP. The proposal also includes potential future work of the CDIP on WIPO’s contribution to the UN Millennium Development Goals. In the proposal, the DAG suggests that the preparation of a “major international conference on integrating development into IP Policy-making,” mentioned in the WIPO program and budget for 2010-2011 be addressed within the CDIP, and that “one day of informal consultations be held in Geneva before the next session of the CDIP.”

Also today, Egypt submitted a proposal for a project [pdf] for the implementation of certain recommendations of the WIPO Development Agenda to promote South-South cooperation and contribute to an “enhanced capacity for developing countries and LDCs to make the most effective use of IP for development.”

Coordination Mechanism Not Always Easy to Deploy

The coordination mechanism issue came up during the Committee on WIPO standards, which met for the first time form 25-29 October and was adjourned over disagreement on two agenda items, one of which related to the WIPO Development Agenda (IPW, WIPO, 1 November 2010).

Disagreement also arose during the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) in October when, according to sources, developed countries opposed a standing agenda item to discuss the SCPs work in relation to the Development Agenda. The item ultimately remained on the agenda (IPW, WIPO, 16 October 2010).

At the last session of the CDIP, a key proposal on technology transfer was not agreed on and the WIPO secretariat, as part of the 6th session documents, presented a project on intellectual property and technology transfer taking into account recommendations 19, 25, 26 and 28 of the Development Agenda.

The project includes, among other things, “the elaboration of a number of a peer-reviewed analytic studies, including economic studies and case studies on international technology transfer,” the organization of a High-Level International Expert Forum on technology transfer and IP, and a New Platform for Technology Transfer and IP Collaboration.

Separately, new dedicated pages on the Millennium Development Goals can be found on the WIPO website.

Also today at a side event, WIPO introduced its new Technical Assistance Database, in response to Development Agenda recommendation 5, that WIPO will display information online regarding all of its technical assistance activities. The database is searchable by location, beneficiary country and type of assistance.

The database so far does not include details such as who is speaking at the technical assistance events or their presentations, which a delegate said would be useful. The secretariat said there were plans to put more information in the database in future updates, but that some presentations might be hard to get permission to put online.

Kaitlin Mara contributed to this story.