Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The World Intellectual Property Organization development committee opened its meeting this week with a heavy list of subjects to cover but developing country delegates insisted on diving headfirst into the issue of an independent review to measure how WIPO applies a development dimension to its activities.
Global health diplomacy was the subject of a symposium organised by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute this week. The symposium explored the crossing lines between health diplomacy and science diplomacy, in particular how can diplomacy facilitate international scientific cooperation in health. This week was also the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization protocol against illicit trade in tobacco products.
The World Intellectual Property Organization today issued its second-ever report on global IP trends, focussing on brands, the relevance of reputation, and image in the global marketplace. Increases in trademark applications and the global value of brands are presented in the report, which looks at economic impact, competition, and concerns over counterfeiting of brands.
There appears to be consensus at the World Intellectual Property Organization on establishing a procedural treaty to facilitate the international registration of industrial designs. But a weeklong committee meeting last week could not solve the issue of how to include technical assistance in the treaty. The WIPO General Assembly in December will decide on whether to convene a high-level meeting next year to finalise the treaty. Meanwhile, the United States proposed resuscitating discussions on geographical indications (GIs) in the committee, which stirred resistance.
Seong-Joon Park is the director general of the Trademark & Design Examination Bureau at the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO). He sat down this week with Intellectual Property Watch to present TM5, a joint global initiative on trademark and design with four other IP-intensive offices, and his vision for trademark and designs in South Korea. As part of the initiative, KIPO is holding a weeklong series of events on trademark and designs in December.
It was clear at today’s opening of a World Intellectual Property Organization committee on industrial designs that developing countries were standing firm on their request to include mandatory technical assistance and capacity building in a potential procedural treaty aimed at facilitating international registration of this form of intellectual property right.
The World Intellectual Property Organization has scheduled an Extraordinary General Assembly from 10-12 December, in order to complete unfinished work from the annual WIPO General Assembly in September.
A collective civil society group has raised concerns about a draft Africa Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) plant variety protection law, which is based on the 1991 version of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). The draft law, which may come up for adoption in November, would criminalise farmers' rights and undermine the seed systems in Africa, they said.
The international organisation providing and promoting intellectual property protection for new plant varieties held the annual meeting of its governing body last week. New member requests were examined while civil society warned against a draft African legal framework on plant variety protection that they said could impact the dominant subsistence farming systems in some African states.
This week the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) is holding the annual meeting of its governing body, and preparatory meetings leading up to it. A seminar also is being held on essentially derived varieties. Meanwhile, civil society is asking that all the meeting documents be held public while demonstrating that restricted documents can be obtained through national freedom of information rights.