[WSIS CS-Plenary] IPR : building consensus

[Enrique A. Chaparro]

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 16:58:46 +0100
Hervé Le Crosnier <herve at info.unicaen.fr> wrote:

HLC> 
HLC> 
HLC> 	Good afternoon (France time)
HLC> 
HLC> 	The question  of place of IPR in the priorities
HLC> 	of the WGIG seems to be :
HLC> 	- an important one (positions try really to
HLC> 	  exprim problems and visions of the place of
HLC> 	  "internet-societies négociations" vs "global-societies
HLC> 	  négociations")

Herve,
Let me dissent. There are objects of that fuzzy field that some 
people insist in calling `IPR' that are of paramount importance 
for the information society. Among these objects, patents,
copyrights, trademarks and mask work are the most noteworthy.
But *none* of them falls into the scope of `Internet governance',
but of `real world' governance: national legislation and
international treaties. I believe that we must do something
about these issues, but that `something' is not pushing alien
objects into the field of IG, but struggling for a deep reform
at both national and international levels (WIPO, WTO).

As you see, building consensus on these issues may prove difficult.
But let me try to answer your question, even if I'm not one of
``those who think that IPR is top-ranking piorities for the WGIG'':

HLC> 	So i ask one question, to clarify the way to such a kind
HLC> 	of consensus, to those who think that IPR is top-ranking
HLC> 	piorities for the WGIG :
HLC> 
HLC> 	- What exactly are the IPR problem you think are in the
HLC> 	scope of the WGIG ?

No ``IPR'' problems are in the scope of WGIG. However, some ``IPR''
issues *affect* IG, and it would be a good thing that the WGIG raise
awareness on those:

1 - The lack of a definite juridical status for domain names
creates complications, unfairness and quasi-juridical illegitimate
procedures for doamin-name dispute resolution;

2 - More important, the so called `software' patents[1] pose a
severe threat for the very existence of the Internet. Since
standards keep the Internet working, no patented technologies
should be included in them. And before someone asks, no, RAND
policies are not enough since they could severely impair or
even annihilate free software, which is the essential engine
behind a number of Internet services[2]

Regards from the Far South,

Enrique

Notes:

[1] Technically speaking, there is no such thing as software
patents. There are patents on algorithms, methods and processes
implemented in software.

[2] 70% of the active Web sites are managed by Apache. The
overwhelming majority of DNS servers is managed by bind. More
than two thirds of all e-mail is managed by sendmail, qmail,
postfix and exim. All these are Free Software pieces.
-- 
``Izena duen guzia omen da.''
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