Dick Kawooya and Sisule Musungu – Recommendation 34 of the WIPO Development Agenda calls upon WIPO to “conduct a study on contraints to intellectual property prtotection in the informal economy, including the tangible costs and benefits of intellectual property protection in particular in relation to generation of employment”. This Recommendation was formulated based on an original proposal by the African Group at WIPO. Consequently, while the Recommendation is relevant to all developing countries, it is of particular interest to Africa. The WIPO Secretariat has now prepared a Discussion Paper as a basis for the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) to decide on the way forward in implementing the Recommendation. In essence, however, the Discussion Paper mainly seeks to frame the questions that ought to be asked as opposed to providing substantive suggestions.
Archive for the ‘Innovation’ Category
Intellectual Property Dynamics in Africa’s Informal Economies
Friday, November 26th, 2010Three books on IP launched in Brazil
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010Pedro Paranagua – Brazil’s Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV), a higher education institution comprised of four Schools (Economic, Business, Law, and Social Science), placed amongst the world’s top-5 “policy-maker think-tank” according to the US magazine Foreign Policy has launched three new books (in Brazilian Portuguese) on intellectual property -related fields.
Stuck in the First Gear: Moving Forward the Discussion on International Transfer of Technology – Part II
Saturday, February 6th, 2010Robinson Esalimba – One of the renowned American inventors from the last century and former head of research at General Motors, Charles Kettering, was famous for his snazzy quotes and sound bites. One of my favourites is; “A problem well stated, is a problem half solved.” I couldn’t agree more. In the first part of my post on Stuck in the First Gear, I suggested that the draft WIPO proposal on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer (CDIP/4/7) which is up for discussion at the fifth session of the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) from April 26 to 30, 2010; is unlikely, as currently framed, to move forward the discussion on transfer of technology. This is because the problem has not been well stated.
Stuck in the First Gear: Moving Forward the Discussion on International Transfer of Technology – Part I
Saturday, February 6th, 2010Robinson Esalimba – Notwithstanding the high regard one might have for a computer software engineer, it would be outrageous to consider commissioning one to design a drug for malaria, or even still, that the drug should be produced in a car manufacturing plant. Yet, it is precisely in this manner that most discussions on transfer of technology have carried on; as if what is good for the car is good enough for the drug. The proposed World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Development Agenda project on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer (CDIP/4/7), which is up for discussion at the fifth session of the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) in April 2010, has the opportunity to change this thinking, but only if it redefines the problem that it seeks to solve. In this post and in Part II, I propose how this can be done.
Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive Intercommunication for Knowledge
Monday, December 7th, 2009Nagla Rizk – On 28 to 29 October 2009 I was in Dubai for the launch of the Arab Knowledge Report 2009 of which I am co-author. The report was originally written in Arabic, and was translated to English, released under the title: Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive Intercommunication for Knowledge. The Report is published by Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme. The Report authors are: Kamal Abdul Latif, Mouin Hamza, Nagla Rizk, Omar Bizri, Ramzi Salama, and the Report Coordinator is Ghaith Fariz.
