The World Intellectual Property Organization has convened an “Open-Ended Forum on Proposed Development Agenda Projects” (October 13-14, 2009). According to WIPO,
[th]e Open-ended Forum seeks to enhance the understanding of the substantive aspects of the proposed Development Agenda projects, which will be discussed in the forthcoming session of the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP), at WIPO headquarters, Geneva, from November 16 to 20, 2009.
For tweets from the first day of the forum, please consult: http://twitter.com/ThiruGeneva
The background documents to this forum include:
- Project on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer: Common Challenges – Building Solutions (Recommendations 19, 25, 26 and 28) – CDIP/4/6
- Project on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer: Common Challenges – Building Solutions (Recommendations 19, 25, 26 and 28) – CDIP/4/7
- Project on Enhancement of WIPO’s Results?Based Management (RBM) Framework to Support the Monitoring and Evaluation of Development Activities (Recommendations 33, 38 and 41) – CDIP/4/8
- Proposals from the Republic of Korea – CDIP/3/7
- Proposal from Japan – CDIP/3/8
The morning session on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 focused on “Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer and the Role of WIPO”. On a panel on the “Business Perspective”, Mr. Alexander Damvelt (Director, Technology Licensing, Philips) presented on his company’s experience dealing with “Open Innovation”. Mr. Damvelt noted that 10 years ago, Philips actively started engaging in technology transfer through licensing arrangements. While stressing that his company invested 1.5 billion euros in R&D per annum, Mr. Damvelt noted that Philips engaged in open innovation with its competitors by need not by choice. With respect open innovation, Damvelt stressed that while Philips made ‘non-strategic know-how” and IP available to its competitors, Damvelt stressed that with respect to “strategic know-how” which “differentiated Philips from its competitors”, it would not license these technologies as it still wanted to retain control of these essential technologies. Damvelt emphasized that open innovation provided Philips with opportunities to “get access to know how and IP” and to create “critical mass and market opportunities”.
Asked by your blogger to describe Philips’ experience with patent pools (citing the MPEG-2 and DVD examples), Mr. Damvelt responded “where should I begin”? Mr. Damvelt mentioned that his company had a long history of working with patent pools, especially in the context of patents and standards (citing the Blue-Ray standard). Time however, did not permit Mr. Damvelt from expounding more on patent pools from Philips’ perspective.