[WSIS CS-Plenary] WIPO Shutting Out Public Interest Organizations

[karen banks]

hi robert

>As you can see from the message below this - multi-stakeholder process - 
>is not happening @WIPO.  I would submit to this group that the plenary 
>should take action - as a min we should again issue a statement in support 
>of our civil society colleagues @ WIPO .

>Like ICANN's ALAC, the WTO, WHO, and WGIG, WIPO,
>continues its ugly form of censorship... Is the UN truly relevant?
>
>See: http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_03.php#003401[3

you may recall i raised this in the final CT meeting when we were 
discussing inputs for the Press statement - people seemed comfortable with 
our referencing it in the press statement.

Steve buckley drafted a paragraph for the press statement, based on 
information we had received from jamie love and manon ress at C Consumer 
Project on Technology. (www.cptech.org)

(I was however, very suprised to see this issue as the first paragraph of 
the press statement.)

The people active around this issue at WIPO are interested in drafting a 
statement - and that was mentioned here in plenary also - but i think they 
have to take the lead.

If we do join in developing a statement, we have the opportunity to develop 
a more sophisticated analysis/assessment of CS participation in WSIS, as 
well as WIPO and other decision-making spaces.

I would be happy to be part of such an effort.

below is a summary or receommendations from CPTECH on possible actions:

karen

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        [Ip-health] WIPO Development Agenda - NGO's and academics 
need to get organized
Date:   Wed, 23 Feb 2005 12:31:22 -0500
From:   James Love <james.love at cptech.org>
To:     Ip-health <ip-health at lists.essential.org>

1.  Accreditation fiasco.

The first big official WIPO/Geneva meetings on the WIPO development agenda 
will be the week of April 11.  WIPO appears to be severely limiting 
accreditation for this meeting, by for example (1) denying all
requests for ad hoc accreditation (needed for NGOs that are not already 
permanent WIPO NGO observers), (2) indicating that permanent accredited 
NGOs may be limited to 1 or 2 member delegations, greatly skewing
participation in favor of the right-owner NGOs, of which there a large 
number.  (see who has permanent NGO observer status here: 
http://www.wipo.int/about-wipo/en/members/admission/pdf/observers.pdf),
and (3) rejecting/ignoring requests that WIPO balance participation between 
right-owner and consumer interest NGOs.

These three actions together pretty much speak for themselves.  I encourage 
groups interested in development and IP to petition the WIPO Secretariat 
*and* member states to change this deplorable and completely
inappropriate policy on participation in these events.

2.  Need to generate position papers on WIPO DA.

The debate on the WIPO development agenda is a *big* *big* event.  The 
right-owner community and the US, EU and other developed countries are 
*highly* mobilized to undermine the DA proposals, and to split developing 
countries.  The opposing coalition is huge, including the corporate players 
involved in pharmaceuticals, argruculture, music, motion pictures, software 
and publishing.  The Feb 3-4 USPTO meetings and the WIPO Casablanca patent 
harmonization meeting are only the tip of the iceberg.  The US government 
has formed an inter-agency task force to attack the DA, similiar to what 
was also done in 1998 on the WHO resolution on trade and patents, and in 
2001/2003 on the WTO Doha access to medicines negotiations.  It would be 
good to have some details on the offical internal EC organization on the 
WIPO DA.  The US announcement after the Feb 3-4 meetiong suggests (to me) 
the European Commission is coordinating the European response.

Groups working on access to medicine or related issues (such as Access to 
Knowledge, Open Access Publishing, Free Software, etc), need to prepare and 
distribute consise position papers on the WIPO development agenda. (see 
http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/ for details of WIPO DA).  It will be best if 
these position papers can be perpared earlier, so governments can study 
them before the meeting.  If papers are prepared by middle or late March, 
it is better than if they are only available in April, when it will be more 
difficult to get government buy-in.

In every case, think carely about what WIPO needs to do, as it relates to 
development.  For example, what should WIPO be doing to implement paragraph 
4 of the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health?  What
should WIPO be doing to address the control of anticompetitive practices 
(Article 40 of TRIPS).  What should WIPO be doing to address poor patent 
quality in the pharmaceutical sector?  What should WIPO do about the
granting of patents on trivial inventions such as the packaging of a drug 
in a gel tabs or a drug dose?   Should WIPO grant deeply reduced fees to 
patent applications that provide for socially responsive licening of 
inventions?  What can WIPO do to protect open source medical databases from 
misappropriation by patents?   Should WIPO have model legislation to 
implement the August 30 WTO decision?  Should it include
the terrible chairman's statement conditions, or be more streamlined? Can 
WIPO hold workshops on how to issue compulsory licenses on essential health 
care inventions?  Should WIPO help amend the Bangui Agreement
restrictions on the use of compulsory licenses for importing medicines? (if 
not, why not?)  Can WIPO be trusted run technical assitance programs under 
the current strucuture of WIPO, or should it be modified?
These are just a few points that people could address.

In general, if NGOS COMPLAIN ABOUT WIPO, THEY NEED TO MAKE SPECIFIC 
CONCRETE PROPOSALS FOR THE DEVELOPMMENT AGENDA.  And -- SOONER, RATHER THAN 
LATER.

Jamie