Copyright reports that the U.S. is now circulating a paper that suggests narrowing the goals of the WIPO development agenda to an Internet-based database to bring together "donors and recipients of IP development assistance."
The report is based on an article by Sangeeta Shashikant published 24 March 2004 in the South-North Developmenht Monitor that is unfortunately behind password protection.
Shashikant reports:
Stating that WIPO already has a "robust development agenda" in
all its work, the draft paper by the US clearly ignores and
sidesteps the demands of the proponents of a "development agenda"
in WIPO.Those demands, as elaborated in the Development Agenda proposal
by Brazil and Argentina (WO/GA/31/11, dated 27 August 2004) and
later co-sponsored with 12 other developing countries, include an
amendment to the WIPO Convention (1967), a reorientation of the
content of present proposals in treaties now being negotiated at
WIPO, the establishment of new pro-development treaties and a
change in WIPO's technical assistance activities.In contrast to this reform programme, the US paper proposes that
WIPO continue to "promote intellectual property around the world"
as its way of fostering development. Its only new suggestion is
the creation of a "WIPO Partnership Program", an Internet-based
database to bring together "donors and recipients of IP
development assistance."
...
The draft paper is expected to form the basis of the US position
at the forthcoming WIPO inter-sessional inter-governmental
meeting on the Development Agenda on 11-13 April.
...
WIPO's role as a UN agency and in achieving the UN's development
goals is defined narrowly by the paper, which states that WIPO is
not a core development agency like the United Nations, UNCTAD or
the UNDP. The 1974 Agreement (between WIPO and the UN), "while
encouraging coordination and cooperation with the UN and its
organs and agencies (in Article 2), also seeks to avoid
overlapping or conflicting relationships with other UN bodies
that would result in waste or inefficient expenditure of UN
resources," says the paper.
