The WIPO Coordination Committee will meet in extraordinary session on May 13-14, 2008, to “nominate a person for appointment by the General Assembly as WIPO Director General. The nominations received from WIPO Member States in response to the Circular C.N. 2833 are now available.”
During the current SCCR 17 discussions on copyright limitations and exceptions, some delegates are unfamiliar with the longstanding efforts to engage WIPO delegates in this issue. Here are some rough notes of *some* of the times when this issue has… Continue Reading
Walking around the marbled corridors of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) during its 43rd General Assembly, one cannot help but feel a palpable sense of an Organization under siege. Heightened security detail, ostensibly for the protection of the institution and the assembled delegates, was referred by one insider as justification for WIPO maintaining the current levels for patent filing fees.
The outgoing General Assembly Chair, Enrique Manalo (Ambassador, Philippines) commenced the 43th session of the WIPO General Assembly at 10:23 AM (Central European Time). Ambassador Manalo highlighted the success of Development Agenda negotiations as a hallmark of his tenure as Chair over the course of 2 years.
"Today the WIPO SCCR decided against scheduling a diplomatic conference to create a new treaty on broadcasting, and set a high bar for doing so. Technically, the subject of the Broadcasting Treaty will continue to be on the agenda of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, but with a fairly tough hurdle before it can move to a diplomatic conference — after there is agreement on the objectives, scope and object of protection, topics for which there is no agreement in sight.
This is technical. The United States delegation says
“US did oppose deletion of “by any means” so that simultaneous retransmission of traditional broadcasts on the internet is covered…..but we never spoke on deferred retransmissions last night.”
However, in the texts that have been made public, the “by any means” applies to both cases. The negotiations are now being held in secret.
At 9:43 PM tonight we hear that the casting discussions are stalling over the United States’ support of the inclusion of the phrase “by any means” in Jukka’s non-paper on Article 7 (Protection of Broadcasts) noting that this would be the “value added” component of any Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations. Continue Reading