To date, disturbingly little information has been released about the actual content of the agreement. However, despite that, it is clearly on a fast track; treaty proponents want it tabled at the G8 summit in July, and completed by the end of 2008. July 2008.
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Civil society groups and countries in the South are concerned about richer nations’ use of Intellectual Property Rights (in particular patents) to protect their own interests, due to the way they obstruct access to resources recognised as vital to humanity.
Broadly speaking, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are a set of legal rules used for regulating the use of "creative work". Intellectual property is divided into two categories: Industrial property, which includes inventions (protected by patents) and Copyright, which in general terms covers literary and artistic works.
Whilst its defenders maintain that patents are important to give incentive for innovation and offer a means to finance research and development activities, groups in the South protest that it is unfair to extend the same criteria to developing countries who cannot compete at the same level. The possibility for countries to decide their own national patent laws allows them to define what inventions may be patented in accordance with its national interests. However, there is a trend towards standardization of national patents laws and the WIPO expects many common exceptions to patentability to disappear in the next few years.
Under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), there has been a drive by industrialised nations to extend the patent regime to new fields and to strengthen its presence in existing ones. This presents obstacles to developing countries not only in developing new technologies, but also in accessing essential resources, with the result that their peoples are denied basic human rights.
The impacts of patents reach from access to essential medicines, caused by inaccessible prices and the denial of generic equivalents, to food security, resulting from seed patents. Furthermore, even where commitments have been made within the WTO in favour of developing countries, bilateral agreements which oblige signing parties to implement higher IPR standards (known as "TRIPS plus") are being increasingly established, creating further difficulties.
In an increasingly technology-driven world, the standard of protection provided by intellectual property (IP) rules is affecting development policies, human rights and other public-interest goals more than ever. At WIPO, concerns about this trend prompted developing countries to put forward since 2004 a series of proposals in support of a WIPO Development Agenda.
World Trade Organization's patent rules -whether raising prices or restricting exports of generic drugs- directly affect the price that developing counties pay for the medicines.
With the help of intellectual property rights, corporations are claiming ownership of, or are otherwise taking unfair advantage of, the genetic resources and traditional knowledge of the south, depriving the country of origin and local communities from their legitimate share of the profits generated out of them. Further issues arise from the increasing force of the biotechnology industry and its designs on the patenting of seeds, in addition to other forms of patents on life.
Civil society organisations and countries in the South are protesting that software patents, promoted by large corporations, slow down development in the South. When ICTs are being consolidated as a means to share knowledge and information, limiting access to these technologies is seen by many as a violation of fundamental rights.
To date, disturbingly little information has been released about the actual content of the agreement. However, despite that, it is clearly on a fast track; treaty proponents want it tabled at the G8 summit in July, and completed by the end of 2008. July 2008.
The move by the US to ‘globalise’ its dysfunctional intellectual property (IP) system may well serve the highly protectionist agenda of its corporations, but is inimical to the cause of knowledge creation and dissemination, human welfare and Third World development. In resisting these inroads into their right to frame IP laws appropriate to their own development needs, developing countries should forge international alliances with all those who seek to redirect the current IP system for the public good of their own societies and for common global concerns. February 2005.
A meeting on intellectual property and access to knowledge held in Geneva on 3-4 February has reviewed several proposals for
restricting the scope of copyright and patents in favour of consumers and the public interest, and for promoting greater public access to information and knowledge. Feb 2005
According to this article, a global patent system could be implemented through the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization. This Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT) would remove most of the remaining national flexibility in patent systems and pave the way for a future world patent granted directly by WIPO. October 2003
see also WIPO moves toward 'world' patent system, a paper by GRAIN which discusses the possibility of having a world patent system; in other words, one office issuing 'world patents' which are automatically valid in all countries. July 2002 (PDF format).
A meeting of the WIPO Development Agenda ended on 15 June, 2007, with a decision to set up a new WIPO Committee on "Development and IP", and to transmit 45 agreed proposals to the WIPO General Assembly for adoption. The new Committee is the centerpiece of the follow-up process in the next phase of the Development Agenda initiative, which will involve implementation of the proposals, and monitoring and assessing of the implementation. The Committee is also mandated to discuss IP and development-related issues. June 2007.
WIPO's 2006 General Assembly (25 September - 3 October 2006) had to make tough decisions on several issues that have seriously divided WIPO members in recent years.Some of the areas of concerns that have been raised by many developing countries in the past meetings as well as at the 15th session were: (1) the extension of the scope to include protection of transmission over computer networks in specific circumstances (although "webcasting" and "simulcasting" are excluded); (2) the exclusive rights approach taken by treaty; (3) the broad rights granted to broadcasters that goes beyond dealing with the problem of signal piracy; and (4) the inclusion of technological protection measures (TPMs).
This paper named 'The Copy/South Dossier' contains more than 50 articles examining many dimensions of the issue across the global South, such as access, culture, economics, libraries, education, software, the Internet, the public domain, and resistance. April 2008.
Intellectual Property Watch posed five questions on IP policy to the 15 candidates nominated as the next director general of WIPO, to be appointed one year early by the annual WIPO General Assembly in September. April 2008.
This study is one further contribution of the ICTSD Programme on Intellectual Property Rights and Sustainable Development to a better understanding of the proper role of intellectual property in a knowledge-based economy. The objective of the study is to explore how technical assistance is dealt with in the IP chapters of FTAs and some of the technical assistance concerns raised by a new generation of IP obligations. To this end, it examines the impact of such obligations in the implementation phase of FTAs, with particular attention given to FTAs between the US and a number of developing countries, especially those in Latin America. April 2007 (pdf version).
The WIPO Development Agenda proposal put forward by the “Group of Friends of Development” argued that “under no circumstances can human rights – which are inalienable and universal – be subordinated to intellectual property protection”. Another dimension of this heated debate is whether IP rights are human rights. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has tried to clarify this long-standing debate by stating that IP rights are not human rights, but this approach might fall short in taking into account the threats that IP enforcement represents to human rights. PDF Format.
This information note outlines how human rights arguments support proposals for a WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) Development Agenda. The Development Agenda process provides WIPO Members with an opportunity to promote human rights-consistent IP regimes worldwide. (PDF document). June 2006.
This piece offers a broad introduction to the issue, encompassing technological, cultural and developmental aspects. The
author argues that intellectual property rights are a political issue which should be discussed by governments and civil society and not be decided by markets. Nov 2005
An article focusing on the harmful role that inflexible intellectual property rights play in development processes and
the democratisation of knowledge. It also recommends positions for civil society organizations. August, 2005.
It is widely recognised that knowledge is essential for development, and that developing countries have much to gain if they are to fully exploit the many opportunities opened up by new technologies. However, increasingly restrictive intellectual property rights are limiting the benefits that new technologies can bring to developing countries. April 2005.
In 2000, the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights issued resolution 2000/7, on human rights and intellectual property, stressing the need to better integrate a broad variety of interests and to rebalance economic and social interest.
Worldwide filings of patent applications have grown at an average annual rate of 4.7% with the highest growth rates experienced in North East Asian countries, particularly the Republic of Korea and China, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). In the 2007 edition of its "Patent Report: Statistics on Worldwide Patent Activities", WIPO said that patents granted worldwide have increased at an average annual rate of 3.6% with some 600,000 patents granted in 2005 alone. By the end of 2005, approximately 5.6 million patents were in force worldwide. August 2007.
This study is a further contribution of the ICTSD Programme on Intellectual Property Rights and Sustainable Development to a better understanding of the proper role of intellectual property in a knowledge-based economy. The objective of the study is to assess the scope, content and potential impact of proposed intellectual property (IP) provisions in Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU). June 2007 (pdf version).
Bilateral free trade agreements (FTA) between net-exporters of goods related to IPR, namely the US and the European Union, and net-importers are establishing an even greater imbalance between the two sides. The minimum standards that countries hoped TRIPS would assure are being erroded by these North-South FTAs, due to the even higher IPR standards they impose. This trend bodes serious impacts in areas that are essential for the common good of these nation-states, such as public health, education, indigenous culture, among others. April 2006
This paper from 2000 warned of many of the threats that are still relevant today, looking particularly at patents on life: “Western intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes have emerged as major instruments of North–South inequality. Not only do they block technology transfer, they facilitate piracy of the indigenous knowledge and biodiversity of Third World countries… Since the majority of the people in the South depend on biodiversity for their livelihoods and survival, the hijack of their resources and knowledge through IPRs is the hijack of their lives and livelihoods”. (pdf format)
The inclusion of traditional knowledge in free trade agreements (FTAs) over the last couple of years, frames it as intellectual property – in other words, a commodity to be bought and sold on the global market. This policy brief discusses specific trade agreements and policies and the issues they raise with regards to biodiversity, traditional knowledge and people’s rights to them. March 2006
Decision of the Provisional Committee for the Development Agenda (PCDA) on the adoption of a high-level declaration on intellectual property and development that takes into consideration the potential social and economic costs for developing countries of intellectual property regimes. June 2006.
The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), which came into force in 1995, was adopted by WTO member nations following trade negotiations in the WTO.
The WIPO is a specialized agency of the United Nations system of organizations which administers 23 international treaties dealing with different aspects of intellectual property protection. One of its key objectives is “to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world through cooperation among States and, where appropriate, in collaboration with any other international organization”. It is also involved in “the progressive development and application of international norms and standards”.
Information on intellectual property in the WTO, news and official records of the activities of the TRIPS Council, and details of the WTO’s work with other international organizations in the field.
