Pedro 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.
Archive for the ‘Knowledge’ Category
Three books on IP launched in Brazil
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010Stuck 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.
Knowledge definitions (2)
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009I admit that I await each issue of Intelligent Life Magazine from The Economist with excitement, if not bated breath. The spine for the last quarter reads “Knowledge is Pleasure” - which it certainly is sometimes, but as I read the magazine I realised that sometimes it clearly isn’t. Knowledge can bring pain and fear and if it is the sense that we make of information (see my previous blog), knowledge certainly includes mistakes. So how can knowledge be owned or traded, and how indeed can a price be put on it?
