Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 5 • Number 7 • 15th April 2005
Governments Meet in Geneva to Discuss WIPO Development Agenda
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The extent to which developmental concerns should figure in the work of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and scope of such concerns were the focus of a 11-13 April WIPO ‘inter-sessional inter-governmental meeting’ (IIM) in Geneva. The IIM was convened after fourteen developing countries, who have since described themselves as the “Friends of Development”, submitted a proposal calling for the establishment of a “Development Agenda for WIPO” (WO/GA/31/11). The Friends said in this document and a new one submitted at the IIM (IIM/1/4) that the mandate and governance of WIPO needs to be reviewed in order to ensure that developmental concerns — such as ensuring that standards are pro-development, or transfer and dissemination of technology issues — are integrated throughout the organisation’s work. Countries such as the US and Mexico rejected the idea that a substantive change in WIPO’s mandate was necessary, warning against its transformation into a development agency. Instead, both the US and Mexico focused their submissions on the general improvement of WIPO’s technical assistance (IIM/1/2 and IIM/1/3). The majority of developing country members, including the groups of African and Asian countries, expressed support for many of the issues raised in the Friends’ submissions and stressed the importance of ensuring that the design and implementation of intellectual property rules take into account different countries’ respective levels of development and that one size should not be made to fit all. After much debate, members agreed that two further sessions of the IIM, scheduled for June and July, would be necessary to examine the issues further.
For a more detailed report of the meeting, see BRIDGES Weekly, 13 April 2005.
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