Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 5 • Number 11 • 10th June 2005
WIPO: No Agreement at Patent Harmonisation Talks
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Differences between developed and developing countries on how to multilaterally harmonise patent law and related procedures widened at a 1-3 June meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s (WIPO) Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP). The SCP is the central body in WIPO that moves ahead patent law harmonisation. Its central purpose is to negotiate a draft ‘Substantive Patent Law Treaty’ (SPLT), which would set standards, among others, for patentability criteria, examination process, and granting and recognition of rights, etc. At the SCP meeting, developing countries claimed success in the talks, which saw the derailment of developed countries’ agenda to limit SCP negotiations on harmonisation of national patent rules to a ‘priority list’ of issue that are primarily of importance to developed countries, such as prior art examination, grace period, novelty and inventive step. Two other issue areas that are of concern to many developing countries — namely genetic resources and sufficiency of disclosure (i.e. requiring patent applicants to supply enough information to allow others to replicate the invention) — would also receive priority consideration. However, the proposal suggested that these two issue areas be negotiated within WIPO’s Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC). Developing countries, especially a group of 14 countries known as the “Group of Friends of Development”, objected to this separation, as the IGC is of a more technical nature and has less political weight than the SPC (see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 28 May 2004). In this sense Brazil submitted a statement to the meeting on behalf of the Group of Friends of Development in which it specifically called for an “inclusive approach” to patent harmonisation.
ICTSD reporting; “Agreement Out Of Reach in WIPO Patent Harmonisation Talks,” IP WATCH, 3 June 2005.
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