Knowledge Ecology International

It is 10:25 AM here in Geneva and the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) has yet to begin. The buzz in the hallways indicates that Finland, Italy, Senegal and Canada are vying for leadership of this Committee which will have important ramifications for WIPO’s work on limitations and exceptions, the public domain, competition and access to knowledge. From our perspective, we hope that the this Committee will augur in the fresh winds of change that will change the direction of WIPO’s work on copyright and related rights towards a positive agenda.

Continue Reading →

WIPO Member States attending the WIPO Committee on Development and Intellectual Property have been invited to a tequila tasting event on 6 March 2008 at the Hotel de Paix coinciding with the candidacy of the Mexican candidate (Jorge Amigo) to the position of Director General of WIPO. The text of the invitation is reproduced below.

Continue Reading →

The newly created WIPO Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) is meeting this week in Geneva from 3 March – 7 March 2008. The chair of the CDIP is Ambassador Trevor Clarke of Barbados. Today the discussion has focused mainly on the rules of procedure and modalities governing this Committee. Unfortunately, finding the 45 Development Agenda recommendations adopted at the WIPO General Assembly in September/October 2007 on the WIPO website is not easy. Continue Reading →

KEI Statement to the WIPO Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP)

March 3, 2008

Continue Reading →

In a blog posted today on the Huffington Post, I could have, should have, elaborated a bit on the few U.S. journalists who had written about the trade disputes involving patents on medicines, before AIDS activists began their zaps of Gore’s presidential campaign in June of 1999.

Continue Reading →

Without much fanfare save a press release bereft of critical detail, the WIPO Secretariat hosted an international round table on from 26-27 November 2007 which brought together 15 leading economists to discuss the “economics of intellectual property (IP)”.

According to the press release,

Continue Reading →

Re: The WHO IGWG Text on Access to Publicly Funded Research Provision, from “Requirement” to “Encouragement”?

One of the outcomes of the Nov. 5-10, 2007 second session of the WHO Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (IGWG2) is a provision on access to government funded research.

Continue Reading →