The Yale Access to Knowledge conference has kicked off. Check out the A2K2 wiki for session notes and updates!

More info on last week's WIPO meeting on the proposed Broadcaster: CPTech's Xcaster blog | WIPO press release | Final recommendations

There's been a bunch of press about this round of WIPO meetings. Check out the WIPO Roundtable Roundup from Public Knowledge. Excerpt: "Very little new ground was broken at today’s USPTO’s WIPO Broadcast Treaty roundtable at the agency’s beautiful headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia Of course I am biased, but I would say that the opponents of the current treaty got the better of the proponents. The proponents, led by NAB Senior Associate General Counsel Ben Ivins essentially justified the need for a 50 year IP right in broadcast signals on the basis that broadcasters “invest” in their signals and that because 83 countries (but not the US and 99 other countries) have signed on to the Rome Convention that gives broadcasters a 20 year intellectual property-like right in their signals, the US should have it too [...]

[from Jamie Love]: On September 5, 2006, the USPTO is holding a public roundtable discussion concerning the work at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) on a proposed Treaty On the Protection of the Rights of Broadcasting Organizations. (See Federal Register / Vol. 71, No. 159 / Thursday, August 17, 2006 / Notices 47489)

Below is are the instructions to the participants, and a list of speakers. Jamie

-------

30 Aug 06

Dear Roundtable Attendees:

I attach a list of all (SEPT 5, 2006) roundtable attendees. The

I've been thinking about the way that WIPO trains thousands in the basics of IPRs. For example, see their online courses at http://www.wipo.int/academy/en/courses/distance_learning/catalog/c_index.html. There are a couple of good responses that the A2K community could develop: 1. make our own online training materials in A2K/Knowledge Sharing/Commons 101. 2. See if it's possible to force WIPO to include Commons alternatives in their own IPR training materials. That would be a real coup. (schock)

WIPO Development Meeting Starts Slowly Despite Push For Strong Reform - By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen and William New

A meeting on a development agenda at the World Intellectual Property Organization got off to a slow start after a half-day debate over who would chair the meeting. This took place in contrast to efforts of key developing nations to keep negotiations on ... [IP Watch]

Open Forum on the draft Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT)
Geneva, March 1 to 3, 2006
PROVISIONAL PROGRAM: http://www.wipo.int/meetings/2006/scp_of_ge_06/en/scp_of_ge_06_inf1.html

FromGeneva, Friday, 20 January 2006
Wipo's open forum on the Draft Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT)
Thiru Balasubramaniam
http://fromgeneva.blogspot.com/2006/01/wipos-open-forum-on-draft-substantive.html

WIPO will hold an "Open Forum on the Draft Substantive Patent Law Treaty
(SPLT) from 1-3 March 2006 at its headquarters in Geneva.

CPTech has obtained a copy of a provisional program dated 21 December
2005. It is understood that the program was a result of a consultative
process held between WIPO Member States and the WIPO Secretariat last
year. An official at WIPO confirmed to me yesterday that not all the

(from Teresa Hackett): Dates for the two meetings of the successor body to the IIMs have been set. These are:

Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda: First Session 20-02-2006 to 24-02-2006, http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=9643

Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda: Second Session 26-06-2006 to 30-06-2006, http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=9766

NOTES FROM THE THIRTEENTH SESSION OF THE STANDING
COMMITTEE ON COPYRIGHT AND RELATED RIGHTS

World Intellectual Property Organization

Geneva, November 21-23, 2005

Impressionistic notes by:

Thiru Balasubramaniam, Consumer Project on Technology (thiru [at] cptech.or=
g)

Cory Doctorow, Electronic Frontier Foundation (cory [at] eff.org)

Teresa Hackett: Electronic Information for
Libraries - eIFL (teresa.hackett [at] eifl.net)

Eddan Katz, Information Society Project at Yale
Law School (eddan.katz [at] yale.edu)

Rufus Pollock, Open Knowledge Foundation (rufus.pollock [at] okfn.org)

From IP Watch: Interview With WIPO Deputy Director General Rita Hayes - Member governments of the UN World Intellectual Property Organisation at their 26 September to 5 October General Assemblies agreed on a way to proceed with negotiations for a treaty on broadcasters’ rights. They will prepare a “basic proposal,” or draft negotiating text, during 2006 with an eye toward holding a ... [IP Watch]

[A2k] WIPO Assembly: WIPO creates "Provisional Committee" for Development Agenda - [del.icio.us wipo feed]

U.S. Holds Out On Extension Of High-Level Meeting On Development Agenda - After a week of meetings at the World Intellectual Property Organisation General Assembly, the United States is possibly alone in firmly objecting to the continuation of a high-level meeting on a proposal for a WIPO development agenda.

The proposal for cross-cutting reform of WIPO toward developing country concerns was first ... [IP Watch]

[A2k] CSC Intervention to the WIPO General Assembly - It is a claim that the investment in transmitting information should create a 50 year exclusive right to in content [del.icio.us wipo feed]

WIPO’s Future Work, Past Credibility On Table At General Assemblies - The top officials of the World Intellectual Property Organisation member states this week gather for their annual meeting facing an unusual number of critical issues for the U.N. body, several of which involve the credibility of the organisation itself. [IP Watch]

A major struggle has emerged over the future of the World Intellectual Property Organization. Flash points are the WIPO Development Agenda negotiations as well as the Broadcast Treaty. We are pulling relevant news feeds from blogs, independent media, and the mainstream press. If you have content we've missed, please feel free to click on the 'publish' button. (You can also add content via del.icio.us; use the tag 'a2k.')

[James Love] Several NGOs had asked for a meeting with the Library of Congress (LOC) and the USPTO to discuss the status of negotiations at WIPO on a new treaty on Broadcasting, that includes a proposal for treaty provisions covering webcasting -- something that is not part of law in the US, Europe or elsewhere (except possibility in a limited way in Finland).

The United States is the primary advocate of creating a new global IP obligation for webcasting, even though there is no US law for this. In essence, the proposal creates an intellectual property right in information that is transmitted. This right is often described as a

http://www.cptech.org/wipo/15sep05letter2usptoloc.html: CPTech renews its request that the USPTO or the Library of Congress (LOC) invite formal public comment on the proposal to create a new International Treaty obligation establishing a novel intellectual property regime for webcasting, through the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

The treaty language proposed for a "webcasting"right would create a new layer of property rights, lasting at least 50 years, for materials that are transmitted by web servers over the Internet and other networks. Unlike copyright, the new webcaster right is not based upon a creative contribution. Any material, including material in the public domain, or licensed for public dissemination under a creative commons type license, would be burdened with this new layer of rights, which accompany any "public transmission" of any combination or representations of sounds and or images. [ft 1]

This useful table maps out the positions of WIPO Members on various aspects of the WIPO Development Agenda including governance, norm-setting, technical assistance and transfer of technology and access to knowledge. The eight areas mapped out and WIPO Member States' respective positions on them include: (1) Change Forum to PCIPD, (2) Amend WIPO Convention, (3) WERO, (4) Widen Participation and role of Civil Society & NGOs, (5) Committee on Tech Transfer, (6) Impact assessments and various other proposals, (7) Adopt Principles & Guidelines and (8) treaty on Access to Knowledge and Technology. link: http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/dev_agenda/iim_table.php

The current state of play: [A2k] Positions of WIPO Member States on an a2k Treaty - [del.icio.us wipo feed]