Key IP-Related Personnel Changes In UN, National Agencies

The end of the year is bringing many changes in intellectual property-related policy offices in Geneva and the capitals. Some of these changes include top offices at the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Health Organization, South African government, United States government, and a global internet body. Intellectual Property Watch Subscribers can read the details here.

Susanna Chung is the new deputy director in the Policy Research and Analysis Unit in Foreign Affairs at the South African Foreign Ministry, where she hopes to stay involved in IP issues from a national perspective. She leaves Geneva on 15 December after four years of service to the South African Mission in Geneva on IP issues. She was critical negotiator at the Convention on Biological Diversity for an international regime on access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing, at the World Intellectual Property Organization on several issues, notably on traditional knowledge, genetic resources and folklore, and at several other international organisations. She previously worked as assistant director in the foreign service in the Department of International Relations and Cooperation.

Sergio Balibrea has joined the cabinet of the World Intellectual Property Organization Director General Francis Gurry. A Spanish lawyer and former official of the European Union, Balibrea has more than 15 years of experience in international trade and IP diplomacy. From 2006 until August of this year, he served as the European Union delegate for intellectual property matters before WIPO, the World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization.

Markus Kummer, executive coordinator of the secretariat of the Internet Governance Forum, will leave his position in January. The IGF supports the UN Secretary-General in the mandate to have a multi-stakeholder policy dialogue about the internet and information society. Kummer announced at IGF consultations in Geneva on 22 November that he was quitting the position as he realised he would reach the UN’s retirement age in August 2011 and it made more sense to have a transition to a new team in January. A Swiss national, Kummer previously led the secretariat of the Working Group on Internet Governance. Before joining the UN, he was a member of the Swiss delegation to the World Summit on the Information Society (from which the IGF was formed) and held several other diplomatic positions in the Swiss Foreign Ministry.

Padmashree Gehl Sampath has recently joined the World Health Organization’s programme on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (PHI) where she is leading an EU-funded project on improving access to medicines in developing countries through local production and related technology transfer. She comes to the WHO from the UN Conference on Trade and Development, where she was an economic affairs officer, working on the Least Developed Countries Report of UNCTAD. Gehl Sampath was previously a lecturer on international development at the Open University, in the UK and a researcher at the United Nations University in the Maastricht Economic and social Research and training centre on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT). She has published and consulted widely in her field. Her latest book titled Reconfiguring Global Health Innovation, has been published by Routledge last month.

Gina Vea, formerly a technical officer for PHI, is moving to the WHO Governing Bodies as an external relations officer. Governing Bodies is the unit that supports meetings of the WHO’s decision-making Executive Board and World Health Assembly as well as certain intergovernmental negotiations such as on substandard/spurious/falsely labelled/falsified/counterfeit medical products and on a framework for pandemic influenza preparedness. She joined the WHO in 2008 after working as an intellectual property and technology programme officer at the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development.

The Global Forum on Health Research will merge with the Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) after the Forum’s governing body decided its future would be “best served by integrating its programmes and activities with those of COHRED,” according to a press release. The integration of the two organisations, based in the same building in Geneva, is meant to be completed by March of 2011. The Global Forum’s executive director, Anthony Mbewu, stepped down a month ago after joining in January 2010, and at the time a spokesperson said there have been a “series of management issues” at the forum.

US Patent and Trademark Office Commissioner for Trademarks Lynne Beresford will retire on 30 December. Beresford spent 30 years at the USPTO, most recently as commissioner for trademarks since 2005 and previously in the Office of Legislative and International Affairs working on trademarks, geographical indications and domain names. She chaired WIPO’s Standing Committee on Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications from its beginning in 1997 until 2001. She joined USPTO in 1979 as a trademark examining attorney.

Deborah Cohn, currently the deputy commissioner for trademarks, will take over Beresford’s position when she leaves. Cohn has also had a long career at the USPTO, joining in 1983 as a trademark examining attorney. She became deputy commissioner for trademarks in 2006.

Angelos Pangratis is the new head of the EU delegation to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, after being appointed [pdf] by Catherine Ashton on 23 November. A Greek national, Pangratis is currently the deputy head of the EU delegation in Washington, DC.

The post of managing director of the Kenya Industrial Property Institute (KIPI) is being advertised widely on Kenyan job sites. This is the job title of James Otieno-Odek, who has been managing director since 1 December 2004, and who in 2008 ran for the office of director general of WIPO. The term of the position being advertised is 3 years.