INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: REVISITING THE AGENDA IN A NEW CONTEXT: The Bellagio Series on Development and Intellectual Property Policy

23rd – 27th October 2005 • Co-organised with UNCTAD

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In October 2002, a group of Geneva-based negotiators, capital-based policy-makers and eminent experts came together at the Rockefeller Foundation’s facilities in Bellagio, Italy to formulate a development-oriented IP agenda. Over the past three years, successive ‘Bellagio Dialogues’ have continued a collective process of developing and promoting the idea of a positive negotiating agenda dealing with TRIPS and the harmonization of IP standards both at WIPO and in bilateral and regional agreements.

Since 2002, three follow-up dialogues have been organized by ICTSD and UNCTAD, during which the development-oriented agenda was further refined by focusing on selected issues such as public health, test data protection, access to knowledge, transfer of technology, regional and bilateral agreements and technical assistance. Ex-post assessment of these annual meetings revealed that they have provided benefits including intellectual leadership, a crucial space for networking, monitoring and analysis of trends, collaboration, campaigning, collective action and targeted research. It has also proved to be particularly effective in generating new ideas and innovative approaches and disseminating them to key actors.

The Fifth Bellagio Dialogue built on the work carried out in previous dialogues and drew on the current effort in WIPO to adopt a Development Agenda. As in the past, it brought together scholars and actors on IP policy debates to build common understandings through an exchange of views and analysis. The dialogue reviewed the main developments at the multilateral and domestic level and new challenges for a pro-development agenda. Areas of particular focus included the processes of patent and copyright harmonization that are currently taking place.

The main objectives of the Fifth Bellagio Dialogue are to:
• Take stock of work carried out on an intellectual property (IP) development-oriented agenda at the multilateral and domestic level;
• Explore new directions and ways forward for a pro-development IP process;
• Relate recent developments at the multilateral level to domestic IP agendas in keycountries.
• Explore new ways and means to advance the IP development agenda.

Topics discussed included:
• Patent reform and harmonisation at the international level;
• Copyright reform and harmonisation at the international level;
• Complementary policy components of a positive agenda;
• Exploring options and modalities to move these processes forward.

Agenda

Monday 24 October 2005

20h Welcome dinner

21.30 - 22h Welcome and brief introduction by organizers

Tuesday 25 October

8.30-9.00 Opening of the Dialogue by organizers and presentation of participants

9.00-12.30 Introductory Session - Taking Stock

This introductory session will examine what has happened since the first Bellagio meeting in 2002. It will discuss the main developments at the multilateral and domestic levels as well as the ongoing Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiation process, and identify successes and failures in advancing the IP development agenda. Participants will be invited to address the following set of questions:

” What progress has been made and what have been the shortcomings in advancing pro-development and public interest agendas in the field of intellectual property?
” What key developments at the multilateral and domestic levels have fostered or hindered the promotion of the development agenda?
” What factors have made a difference between progress or inertia in particular cases?
” Is there enough political momentum for the development agenda at WIPO and the WTO to move ahead?

Facilitation: Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz
Resource Person: Pedro Roffe
Commentator: Sisule Musungu
Rapporteur: Johanna von Braun

15.00-19.00 Towards a Positive Agenda on Innovation and Transfer and Dissemination of Technology

a) Patent reform and harmonization at the international level

Industrialized countries have been the engine of patent harmonization processes at both domestic and multilateral levels. Since the adoption of the TRIPS Agreement various initiatives of patent harmonization have taken place in WIPO. The first was the negotiation and adoption of a treaty on patent law, which dealt mostly with procedural aspects. The second initiative has consisted of work undertaken toward substantive patent harmonization through the discussion of a draft Substantive Patent Law Treaty. Developing countries perceive this process as potentially reducing their flexibility in policy-making, and as a consequence they have thus far adopted a defensive approach towards harmonisation. The purpose of the session will be to identify, as far as possible, concrete proposals for a positive patent reform agenda that could incorporate development concerns in further harmonization efforts.

” What concessions and conditions could be made in order to accommodate the harmonization demands of developed countries?
” How practical do these proposals have to be in order to gain support from other stakeholders and to be successfully carried forward in international fora?
” What areas of the respective reform processes allow for coalitions could to be built between developing and developed partners?

Facilitation: Maristela Basso
Resource Persons: Carlos Correa and Phil Thorpe
Commentator: Alfred Engelberg
Rapporteur: Christoph Spennemann

Wednesday 26 October

8.30 - 9.00 Recapitulation by Resource People identified on the first day

9.00 - 12.30 b) Copyright reform and harmonization at the international level

There is growing interest in the relationship between copyright laws and development. After the TRIPS Agreement, two agreements on copyright and related rights in the digital environment were adopted at WIPO in 1996, and new obligations in this area are being introduced in bilateral trade agreements. The implementation and impacts of these agreements have been controversial in many countries. The purpose of this session will be to explore the main components of a positive agenda in the field of copyright.

” What would a minimal set of copyright harmonization proposals that takes account of development concerns consist of?
” What concessions and conditions could be made in order to accommodate the harmonization demands of more powerful trading partners?
” How can access to educational material and access to knowledge in the digital environment be integrated or reconciled with current copyright harmonization processes?
” Are the challenges of new technologies in the digital environment compatible with public interest concerns?
” How can flexibilities be preserved with respect to both traditional copyright issues and new issues in the digital environment (e.g. use of copyright exceptions and the Berne Appendix)?

Facilitation: Ahmed Abdel Latif
Resource Persons: Howard Knopf and Uma Suthersanen
Commentator: Jamie Love
Rapporteur: David Vivas

15.00-19.00 c) Complementary policy components of a positive agenda

The IP agenda that is currently being pursued at the multilateral, regional and bilateral levels is based on the assumption that stronger IP standards and enforcement measures will contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology. The history of development, however, suggests that this assumption is oversimplified. This session will look at how to advance measures at the international level that would ease the pressures currently faced by developing countries in responding to the IP agenda advocated by powerful interest groups.

” What would a minimal set of proposals that takes into account the concerns and interests of developing countries consist of?
” How relevant are these possible initiatives to the IP agenda being advocated at the multilateral and recent FTAs?
” How can market-based initiatives to induce innovation, R&D, and technology transfer in developing countries be improved?
” How can IP issues be integrated into the formulation and implementation of competition laws in developing countries?
” How can competition authorities be integrated into the formulation of domestic IP policy?

Facilitation: Roberto Jaguaribe
Resource Persons: Benjamin Coriat and Carsten Fink
Commentator: Pedro Roffe
Rapporteur: Christoph Spennemann

Thursday 27 October

8.30 - 9.00 Recapitulation by Resource Persons identified at the previous day

9.00 - 12.30 Exloring options and modalities to move these processes forward

The previous sessions have examined the possible contents of development-oriented IP agendas. This session will consider the possibilities and means required to move these processes forward, paying particular attention to the individual roles of the different stakeholders involved.

” Are good ideas and initiatives sufficient to carry public opinion forward and advance reform processes?
” Which are the essential ingredients in the WIPO Development Agenda?
” Is the reinforcement of multilateralism the best response to plurilateral trade negotiations in IP? How can this be achieved?
” Is the IP development agenda supported by the public and if so how can that be maximized?

Facilitation: Alberto Dumont
Resource Persons: Maristela Basso and Carolyn Deere
Commentator: Hanan Sboul
Rapporteur: David Vivas

15.00-19.00 - Final Session - Summarizing the outcome and recommendations of the Dialogue

The final session will synthesize the main recommendations made by participants, and will identify the key recommendations and conclusions of the dialogue.

Facilitation and initial summarization: Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz
Rapporteur: Carolyn Deere

Participants

ABDEL LATIF, Ahmed
Egypt
Ministry of Foreign Affairs

BASSO, Maristela
Brazil
University of Sao Paulo

CORREA, Carlos
Argentina
University of Buenos Aires

CORIAT, Benjamin
France
University of Paris XIII

DANSUPUTRA, Thosapone
Thailand
Ministry of Commerce

DEERE, Carolyn
Australia
Global Economic Governance Programme, Oxford University

DUMONT, Alberto
Argentina
Foreign Office

ENGELBERG, Alfred B
USA
Attourney at Law

FINK, Carsten
Germany
World Bank Institute

JAGUARIBE, Roberto
Brazil
Instituto National da Propriedade Industrial

KNOPF, Howard
Canada
Moffat & Co. and Macera & Jarzyna

KUANPOTH, Jakkrit
Thailand
University of Wollongong

KUTTERER, Cornelia
Germany
The European Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC)

LOVE, Jamie
USA
Consumer Project on Technology

MELÉNDEZ-ORTIZ, Ricardo
Colombia
ICTSD

MUSUNGU, Sisule
Kenya
South Centre

ROFFE, Pedro
Chile
ICTSD

SBOUL, Hanan
Jordan
Jordanian Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers (JAPM)

VIVAS, David
Venezuela
ICTSD

SPENNEMANN, Christoph
Germany
UNCTAD

SUTHERSANEN, Uma
UK - Singapore
Queen Mary University

VON BRAUN, Johanna
Germany
ICTSD

WERKSMAN, Jake
USA
Rockefeller Foundation