AUTHOR: ______________ TITLE: WIPO's Committee on Development Begins Work on Technology Transfer DATE: 10/15/2009 09:51:00 AM ----- BODY:
Formed in 2007 to address Development concerns associated with IP, WIPO's Committee on Development and IP (CDIP) is - finally - starting to address Technology Transfer. By way of background, the Development Agenda is comprised of 45 Recommendations, ranging from Capacity Building, to Norm-Setting, to the Governance of WIPO . Recommendations 24-26, and 28-31 (cluster C) are directed to Technology Transfer. At the most recent CDIP, the Member States agreed to take a thematic approach" to implementing Recommendations - realizing that there was some overlap between individual recommendations. However, one key pre-condition to the thematic approach was that the individual recommendations would be discussed before projects were decided upon. In making progress towards the implementation of Recommendations 19, 25, 26 and 28, WIPO presented its "Project on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer: Common Challenges - Building Solutions" at the Open-ended Forum on Proposed Development Agenda Projects. As far as we can tell, none of these Recommendations have been discussed in the Plenary of the CDIP, as required under the thematic approach. The proposed project consists of five "Key Activities:"
  1. Organize a high-level forum to facilitate Access to Knowledge/Technology and to form the "New Platform" on Technology Transfer and IP collaboration
  2. Perform a series of studies
  3. Hold a WIPO forum on transfer and collaboration
  4. Hold regional consultations
  5. Strengthen existing activities within WIPO
The project is projected to cost about 1.5 million CHF, and take 27 months. How these figures were arrived at, without having concrete plans for which studies would be carried out and how existing activities would be strengthened, is uncertain. Thankfully, WIPO is holding its anticipated "Conference on Building Partnerships for Mobilizing Resources for IP and Development" in a few weeks, just in case additional resources are needed. Moreover, the function of this new platform is quite vague, which is perhaps an appropriate precaution, given the fact that WIPO's Member States have not discussed these recommendations in the plenary. Briefly, CIEL, while welcoming this activity, would recommend that
  1. Individual Recommendations be discussed first in the CDIP so as to not provide for definitions of individual Recommendations through their associated projects for implementation;
  2. WIPO view holistically the issue of Technology Transfer and include WIPO's Copyright Section in the relevant divisions implementing Technology Transfer recommendations. The proposal included Patent and Information Communication Technology sections, but not Copyright;
  3. WIPO create a mechanism to gather empirical evidence regarding the International Transfer of Technology to help generate evidence based policies for issues of global concern; and
  4. WIPO create distinct points of contact and input with relevant Intergovernmental Organizations, as required under Recommendations 30 and 40, in order to capitalize on previous efforts on Technology Transfer by the WTO, WHO, UNEP, UNCTAD and other IGOs.

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