WIPO Conference on Public Policy

UNCLAS GENEVA 000730

SIPDIS
SENSITIVE

SECSTATE FOR IO, EEB, OES
COMMERCE FOR USPTO
ROME for FODAG

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON KIPR SENV WIPO
SUBJECT: WIPO Conference on Public Policy


1. SUMMARY (SBU): During the July 13-14 World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO) Conference on Intellectual Property (IP) and
Public Policy Issues in Geneva, Switzerland, participants explored
and clarified the connection between IP and several major public
policy issues such as climate change, public health, food security
and protection of traditional knowledge. The conference was held at
the behest of the WIPO Standing Committee on Patents (SCP) and
provided an opportunity for WIPO not only to reinsert itself into
debates on IP's role in addressing key public policy issues, but
also to claim a leadership role that WIPO hopes will result in
better understanding of the IP aspect of public policy issues by
intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and
member states. A Chair's report on the public policy conference
will be submitted to the next SCP meeting in November 2009, at which
time, developing countries may push to have the conference's topics
become a new focal point for work under the SCP. To address
concerns from some WIPO Member States that the focus of the public
policy conference not be diverted from the patent system, WIPO held
a separate conference on access to reading material for the visually
impaired on the morning of July 13 (septel). END SUMMARY.

Climate Change
--------------


2. (U) The role of IP in promoting the development and diffusion of
green technologies to combat climate change was at the heart of
discussions at a two-day international conference on IP and public
policy issues. The overall view at the Conference was that IP is a
key incentive for the creation of new green technologies to address
climate change problems. To assess the extent of the climate change
problem, Michel Jarraud, Secretary General the World Meteorological
Organization (WMO) pointed to unequivocal scientific evidence on the
tremendous impacts of climate change on health and food security.
He noted that IP should be a catalyst, and not an obstacle, to
solving problems associated with climate change. Jarraud emphasized
the advantages of international cooperation and the need for a
multi-disciplinary approach to the challenges arising from climate
change, as well as the importance of facilitating technology
transfer.


3. (U) Britain's Minister for Higher Education and Intellectual
Property, Mr. David Lammy, and WIPO DG Gurry also provided similar
messages emphasizing the importance of IP rights in facilitating the
transition to clean technologies and renewable energies, and the
range of options offered by the IP system in identifying,
transferring, and disseminating those technologies to address
climate change. Lammy specifically noted that the technology
transfer issue was crucial to the success of climate change
negotiations in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC). DG Gurry added that IP rights offered the
necessary incentives to develop green technologies, noting moves by
several countries to develop systems to fast track the examination
of patent applications in the area of clean technologies and
renewable energy. The IP system offers a proven means of
encouraging investment in the clean technologies required to adapt
to and mitigate climate change.


4. (U) As referenced in the speeches of UK Minister Lammy and DG
Gurry, technology transfer of green technology is a key issue among
NGOs, developing countries and the IP community. It is also a key
feature in the UNFCCC, which is slated to have a finalized agreement
by the end of the year. Wanna Tanunchaiwatana, Manager of the
Technology Sub-Program of the UNFCCC, reported that draft language
concerning technology transfer would commit developed countries 'to
take all practicable steps to promote, facilitate and finance, as
appropriate, the transfer of, or access to, environmentally sound
technologies and know-how to other parties, particularly developing
country parties' (Article 4.5 of the UNFCCC). Tanunchaiwatana
believes that difficulty in negotiating the IP section of the UNFCC
agreement does not rest with the idea of transferring IP-dependent
green technologies itself, but with the broader challenge of how to
implement and encourage the diffusion of all relevant technologies
to reduce the impacts of climate change on a global scale. She
reminded attendees of the short amount of negotiating time remaining
before the December deadline, and encouraged parties to work through
the current standstill on IPR in the UNFCCC talks.


5. (U) In response to the growing debate on whether the solution to
climate change should mirror the compulsory license solution reached
in the WTO for improving access to pharmaceuticals for poor
countries, economist Daniel Johnson and Chief IP Counsel for General
Electric Carl Horton noted empirical research illustrating that
weakening IPR protection for climate change-related technologies is
an unsound policy and will harm innovation. It was noted that there
are very few patents on green technologies (fewer than in the
pharmaceutical sector),making compulsory licensing unnecessary in
most cases. Panelists emphasized that a lack of green technology
patents in this area shows that IP is not an obstacle to development
and it allows for open access and further innovation. They
concluded that proposals in the UNFCCC for mandatory technology
transfer and/or compulsory licensing under UNFCCC will have the
unintended effect of hampering any investment and innovation in this
area. It was also highlighted that technology transfer concerns
must be addressed on a commercial basis and not through government
enforcement.

Public Health and Traditional Knowledge
--------------


6. (U) Evident throughout the discussions related to public health
was a theme calling for 'strong collaborative action' among IGOs and
the private sector to address questions on IP, trade and public
health. WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan stated that while
innovation has a key role to play in new drug development, market
forces alone are insufficient to ensure the delivery of affordable
and universal public health solutions. She noted that both needs-
and profit-driven incentives should be explored to address both
access problems faced by the poor and lack of new treatments for
neglected diseases.


7. (U) Dr. Chan said that international agreements can be shaped in
ways favoring health needs of the poor and cited the May 2008 World
Health Assembly-adopted resolution on public health, innovation and
intellectual property, as a model. According to Dr. Chan, the
global strategy and plan of action contained in the resolution
provide agreed-upon lines of action for making health care products
more accessible and affordable, especially in the developing world.
Further, Chan noted that creative solutions to address the health
needs of the poor that complement the IP system include UNITAID's
patent pool, a voluntary system created with the intent to reduce
expenses and increase access to IP essential to make medicines that
are needed by poor countries facing the HIV/AIDS crisis. Chan also
cited other IP-complementary solutions, such as WHO's
pre-qualification program, which helps developing county producers
achieve necessary quality standards to produce safe and effective
medicines.


8. (U) World Trade Organization (WTO) Director General Pascal Lamy
also underlined a need for effective international partnerships.
With interdependent issues of public health, climate change,
biodiversity and food security, "no single international agency has
a monopoly on these diverse areas of policy," said Lamy. Noting
that climate change will likely have a severe impact on disease
patterns and on agriculture, Lamy stressed that the effective use of
the IP system and of TRIPS flexibilities are important, but do not
stand alone: IP law and policy must be harnessed with drug
procurement policies, pro-competition safeguards, and regulation of
drugs for safety and quality.


9. (U) Tony Wood, Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry at Pfizer
Global Research and Development, noted that IP is absolutely
essential from the researchers' point of view. He added that 10 to
12 years elapse between inventing the right molecule and undertaking
all the necessary testing and trials to bring it to market. Without
patents, the research would be held as a trade secret during
testing, holding back medical research that is aided by disclosure
in patent applications.


10. (U) Joseph Straus of the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual
Property agreed, saying a precondition of access to medications is
their existence, which means research and development must be
incentivized. Robert Sebbag, Vice President of Access to Medicines
at Sanofi-Aventis, added that important progress is being made to
effectively address access to medicine concerns for the poor through
public and private partnerships. Moreover, he noted that the
industry is utilizing alternative models to deliver lower profit
medicines at higher volumes to treat neglected diseases without
dismantling the patent system. He reminded the audience that access
to affordable medicines is just one piece of the puzzle, and that
education and communication are key in fighting diseases.

TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE
--------------


11. (U) Discussions also centered on the role of traditional
knowledge in addressing IP and public health concerns. Claudia Ines
Chamas, senior advisor in the Secretariat of Sciences and Technology
and Strategic Inputs at Brazil's Ministry of Health noted that for
many neglected diseases, the medicines are old, toxic, expensive, or
in short supply. She stated that access to medicine is not possible
without reasonable efforts towards increasing local capacity and
building a local basis of knowledge. Yonah Seleti, Director General
of South Africa's Department of Science and Technology stated that
the "African renaissance can only be borne on the role of indigenous
knowledge systems". According to Seleti, indigenous people have
enormous economic and social potential in their knowledge, but the
current IP system sometimes fails to protect that knowledge. It was
also noted that misappropriation of traditional knowledge must be
stopped.


12. (U) Vinod Kumar Gupta, head of the Information Technology
Division at the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL),a
project of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in
India, reported on his efforts to use the TKDL to catalogue
traditional knowledge in a patent-like format so that it is easier
to identify as prior art. He mentioned that a recent agreement with
the European Patent Office has made the database available for
patent examiners to use in grant procedures, and a similar agreement
is expected soon with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He
concluded by noting that collaborative research between traditional
knowledge and modern medicine can yield great public health
benefits, but IP agreements must find ways to protect traditional
knowledge.


13. (SBU) COMMENT: It should be noted that, though not specifically
raised at the Conference, the issue of providing IP protection for
traditional knowledge/access to genetic resources/traditional
cultural expressions (TKGRTCE) has been examined by Member States
for several years at WIPO's Intergovernmental Committee (IGC) on
TKGRTCEs. WIPO technical assistance units also continue to provide
essential advice to developing and least developed countries on the
effective use of existing IP principles and systems for these
IP-related interests. All Member States support the need for
protecting traditional knowledge and are committed to making
progress on the protection, preservation and promotion of TKGRTCEs.
However, the Africa Group, along with Brazil, India, Indonesia,
Iran, Pakistan, and many Caribbean nations are currently demanding
that an internationally-binding treaty be negotiated at the IGC and
concluded and signed by Member States in 2012. Developed countries,
as well as two developing countries (South Korea and Singapore),
believe that it would be premature to agree upon the nature of the
text to be negotiated (i.e. that it would be a binding treaty)
without a pre-agreement on the content of that text. The U.S. and
others also maintain that no outcome of the IGC should be precluded,
including the adoption of a legally binding international
instrument, but that, at this point, no outcome should be prejudged
either. END COMMENT

Food Security
--------------


14. (U) In opening remarks under the topic of IP and Sustainable
Agriculture, Algerian Ambassador Idriss Jazaory stated that the
number of malnourished people in the world has topped one billion.
WIPO's role here is to ensure that the system for IP protection
contributes to the creation of new food and agricultural resources,
but at the same time does not become an obstacle to the most
vulnerable people in the most vulnerable places having access to
them, said Jazaory. He noted that IPR could be used to justify food
cartels or to alleviate hunger; how this plays out depends on the
international community.


15. (U) Shakeel Bhatti, Secretary of the International Treaty on
Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture at the Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations added that
access to seeds has impacted food security. The treaty has, he said,
made significant breakthroughs in funding its access and benefit
sharing system, while waiting for the built-in time lag of 5 to 7
years before commercial products start growing out of it.


16. (U) Kanayo Nwanze, President of the International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD) noted that it is not tenable to
separate IP from sustainable development. Intellectual property
rights can serve as catalysts for sustainable agricultural growth,
but there needs to be a shift in thinking on technology development
from the public/private divide to partnerships and equitable
benefits for both stakeholders.


17. (U) Richard Jefferson, Chief Executive of non-profit Cambia,
proposed one way in which the IP system might be set up for improved
collaboration. He reported on the Initiative for Open Innovation, a
new project in collaboration with WIPO and the Gates Foundation
launched in July 2009, which aims to create a "free, open, global
web-based facility" that will map in all languages not only patents,
but also regulatory data and science and technology literature,
cross-referencing them with key genes and compounds, creating
'patent landscapes' that will allow for a clear picture of what is
patented, where it is patented, and who controls it.


18. (U) As a part of the Initiative for Open Innovation, Cambia has
proposed the creation of a new legal tool they call a 'concord;' a
mutual agreement not to assert IP rights in a particular field of
use. For example, Jefferson said companies might agree not to
assert any IP rights related to research, development, manufacture,
delivery or support of malaria interventions. The patents might be
enforced for other purposes, but this allows for collaborative
innovation to solve specific problems, and will reduce costs for
small players who want to work on such problems.


19. (U) Michael Kock, the Global Head of IP at agriculture
technology firm Syngenta International, compared the seed industry
to the entertainment industry, as copying and counterfeits continue
to be major problems for the seed industry. He clarified that
Syngenta does not seek patents for plants/seeds in least developed
countries or enforce rights used in subsistence farming. He noted
that the enforcement issues arise in the context of use by large
farmers in developed countries. He continued in emphasizing that
the disclosure of origin of genetic resources, which has been
proposed as a way to protect small growers, is problematic because
it increases uncertainty for innovators and will discourage the use
of genetic diversity. A key area that would further innovation in
the seed industry would be patent harmonization of plant protection,
as the existing rules under the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related
Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) allow for protection
of plant varieties either by patents or by an effective sui generis
system or by any combination thereof. As a result, there are
varying degrees of patent protection for plants from one territory
to another.

Closing remarks
--------------

20. (SBU) In summarizing the two-day Conference, the Chair of the
Standing Committee of Patents (SCP),Maximiliano Santa Cruz (Chile),
noted that IP is not an end in itself, but an instrument to promote
innovation, creativity and the dissemination of knowledge. He added
that while the IP system may present some challenges, it can also be
part of the solution to development questions. The SCP Chair noted
that a common theme during the Conference was that innovation and
technology coupled with technology transfer is no doubt an important
contribution to solving problems that may arise in other areas of
development. The Chair is charged with reporting back to Member
States on the outcome of the Conference. Though proposals have yet
to be made, certain developing countries are likely to push for
further discussion of the topics raised at the Conference,
particularly those concerning technology transfer at future SCP
meetings, as well as follow up conferences.


21. (U) All PowerPoint Presentations and audio speeches can be
found at: http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/2009/ip_gc_ge /
program.html

GRIFFITHS#