The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is to hold, today and tomorrow (13th and 14th July 2009), a major international conference on intellectual property and public policy issues. It promises to be quite an event, a first in many ways. According to the initial list of participants, more than 600 people are registered for the conference with approximately 192 of these being government officials, 38 being representatives of intergovernmental organisations and 82 from NGOs, civil society and industry groups that are observers to WIPO.
Archive for the ‘Patents’ Category
The WIPO Conference on IP & Public Policy Issues – A Preview
Monday, July 13th, 2009Comment on WIPO Study on exclusions from Patentability and Exceptions and Limitations
Friday, April 10th, 2009This preliminary WIPO Study prepared for the 13th Session of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) which took place from 23 to 27 March 2009, while making a useful contribution, falls far short of expectation in terms of advancing the understanding of the subject and moving debate forward. There is no doubt that the study, as most of the others prepared for the same session, breaks from WIPO’s past. It discusses many key issues and makes statements, which only recently would have been considered alarming in WIPO. Paragraphs 3, 9, 31, 33, 36, 37, 59, 63, 72, 73, 90, 95, 96, 97 and 102 are just some examples of interesting and useful lines of discussion. The key failing of the study is the failure to bring to the attention of WIPO Member States a representative picture of the literature on the subject and some of the pertinent discussions such as on how exclusions from patentability and exceptions and limitations to patent rights should be addressed in patent harmonisation or their importance for development. Literature on these issues from a development and IP perspective is essentially ignored, and it is hard to believe that this was inadvertent or that such literature was beyond the scope of the study. It is perhaps for that reason that WIPO Member States decided, at the end of of the 13th Session, that further work on this subject should be commissioned out.
Client-Attorney Privilege – A Comment on WIPO’s Take
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009It is the study with which WIPO Secretariat appears most comfortable with. The clarity on what the problem is, the international dimension of the problem and options for possible solution are all quite clear. But among the four studies under discussion in the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP), it is also the study that justifies, the best, my argument in the earlier post on the changing landscape of WIPO’s patent agenda that the jury is still out on how much WIPO has changed on the subject of patents.
Commentary on WIPO’s Study on Dissemination of Patent Information
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009Among the four preliminary studies being discussed by WIPO at the 13th Session of the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) this week is a study titled Dissemination of Patent Information. This is an informative and useful background document regarding the theory of patents as a source of information and potential pathways to access such information. The study also provides useful details regarding WIPO’s current information services and planned projects.
Commentary on the WIPO Study on Standards and Patents
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009At this week’s WIPO Standing Committee on Law of Patents (SCP) meeting the main discussion centres on four preliminary studies prepared by the WIPO Secretariat. The studies relate to: patents and standards; exclusions from patentable subject matter and exceptions and limitations to patent rights; dissemination of patent information; and client-attorney privilege. As I noted in my earlier post on the changing landscape of WIPO’s patent agenda, all the preliminary studies are worth reading. Each of them deserves some commentary and I start with the study on patents and standards. I comment, in separate posts to come, on each of the other preliminary studies.
