WIPO Director Sees Tougher Times For Multilateral IP Treaties

Negotiations for new global policies on intellectual property has become more challenging due to a greater competition in innovation, knowledge asymmetries, and the push for bilateral and regional treaties, the head of the World Intellectual Property Organization said today.

WIPO Director General Francis Gurry gave the director’s report to the opening of the annual General Assembly of member states, taking place from 5-14 October.

At the start of the meeting, Colombian Amb. Gabriel Duque was named chair of the Assemblies for the next two years. He has been serving as chair of the complex Program and Budget Committee (PBC). The Assemblies bid farewell and thanks to Amb. Päivi Kairamo of Finland, who served as chair over the past two years.

The WIPO opening press release is available here, including Gurry’s opening speech. The annual report of the director general is available here [pdf].

Gurry highlighted the many gains and accomplishments of the organisation, including a 37 million Swiss franc surplus for the first year (and expected good results of the second year) of the past biennium (2014/2015), and the expansion of many programs and services offered by the UN agency.

But he also mentioned that there “is, and always will be, a place for treaties and other normative cooperation” at the multilateral institution. “It provides, after all, the framework within which both the private and public sectors are able to operate.”

“But,” he said, “we must face the fact that the normative area is the most challenging one and the one in which the Organization has the greatest difficulty in moving forward. The lack of capacity to agree is often lamented here in Geneva and elsewhere in the world.”

Gurry said there are many explanations for it, and offered three that are “prominent.” First, it is a “consequence of the increased value of intangibles and intellectual capital in the economy,” he said. “At the same time as this increased value is driving demand for our Global IP Systems, it is also making innovation the focus of competition between enterprises, industries and economies.”

“Naturally, it is harder to come to agreement on intellectual property in this context than it was in a world ruled by physical resources and capital,” he said.

Secondly, he pointed to the “enormous asymmetries in the distribution of knowledge and technology across the world and in the capacity to generate innovation.” This has always existed, he noted, “but it is accentuated in a world in which knowledge, technology and innovation capacity have become central resources.”

And the third reason is that some countries are trying to move faster and farther at the bilateral and plurilateral levels.

“The increased value of intellectual capital and its centrality to competition also means that economies that do wish to trade in intangibles and to advance their competitive advantage in the area are impatient to put in place the regulatory regimes to facilitate this,” Gurry said. “Thus, we see very active agenda in the field of intellectual property at the bilateral, regional and plurilateral levels in a way that did not exist 20 or 30 years ago.”

“This more complex architecture tends, naturally, to suck some of the oxygen out of the multilateral space,” he said.

These developments require WIPO and its member states to think more carefully about what can be done at the multilateral level, as “clearly some things need to be, or should be, done multilaterally.”

Healthy Financial Condition

Regardless of difficulties in treaty-making – and there are still several possible treaties up for potential discussion at the Assemblies, including in design law, broadcasting, limitations and exceptions to copyright, and traditional knowledge, genetic resources and folklore to name a few – the agency “continues to enjoy a sound and even fortunate financial situation,” as Gurry put it.

This is due to rising interest in, and demand for, intellectual property, “as knowledge, technology and creative works move to the center of the contemporary economy and as governments respond by orienting economic strategies to innovation and creativity,” he said. Intellectual property is a necessary component of that.

Today, Gurry reported that several of the treaties managed by WIPO are now the source of 95 percent of its revenues, which appears to be higher than in past years. He cited the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), Madrid system for marks, and the Hague system for designs. This year, some 220,000 international patent applications are expected under the PCT, and 50,000 international trademark applications (with a “much smaller but rapidly growing” number of international design applications).

Single Global IP Platform

Gurry listed a variety of “important advances” the organisation has made in the “soft infrastructure that underlies the operation of the IP system worldwide,” referring to WIPO’s global databases and information technology platforms, systems and tools.

These platforms, he said, are “increasingly forming a part of a single global IP infrastructure platform that will, in the coming years, become more integrated.” Beneficiaries will be governments, users and the interested public, he said.

Furthermore, he said, these platforms and systems represent a “very good example” of implementation of the 2007 WIPO Development Agenda as they serve developing countries as well.

And Gurry highlighted the emphasis at WIPO on public-private partnerships, in areas such as pharmaceuticals, publishing, and access to commercial patent databases.

He stated that the organisation’s emphasis on partnerships does not reduce the importance of WIPO’s normative program.

In closing, he called on member states to show a “real effort and some compromise in initial positions” in order reach agreement on some of the challenging areas of the agenda (IPW, WIPO, 4 October 2015).

Regional Group Statements

The regional groups at WIPO made their opening statements today, highlighting areas of importance to them.

Many mentioned external offices of WIPO, and the African Group proposed that two offices be agreed to be opened on the continent in the next biennium, saying it is “content rich but challenged by development gaps.” Other regions signalled that they would prefer to continue discussions on guiding principles for opening offices be resolved first.

On the renewal of the mandate of the Intergovernmental Committee on Traditional Knowledge, Genetic Resources and Folklore (IGC), the African Group urged support of its proposal to make the committee a permanent standing committee at WIPO. The Group of Latin American and Caribbean countries appeared to support the continuation of the current mandate for another two years. This refers to a proposal of Switzerland and other countries. The Asia-Pacific Group said there is a need to finalize the texts for protection of these areas but did not specify which option it would support. China, its own regional group, said it would support continuation of the IGC mandate.

The United States has proposed to suspend the committee and hold seminars and other activities. The Group B developed countries did not take a clear position on the way forward but agreed to continue going forward and for the need for new framework.

A number of groups mentioned support for pursuing the update of the treaty on industrial design, but signalled continued differences over developing country demands for technical assistance to be involved, including possible requirements for disclosure of origin.

WIPO and Reality

Group B spoke to WIPO’s relationship with the United Nations, and said the “distinct and unique” nature of WIPO must be considered. WIPO has to “keep its feet on the ground, that is, in touch with real world,” the group statement said.

 

Image Credits: WIPO