Arrived in Geneva after trip that wasn't too long (roughly nine hours
door to door), but somehow exhausting. I found the City Hostel Geneva
much like I left it last July. At least, this time I got the bed beside
the window, which means that I'm in control of the fresh air supply and
the heating. Good.
Though I missed the first day of the WIPO meeting I'm here for - the
Provisional Committee on a Development Agenda for WIPO, or PCDA for
short - I suppose I haven't deprived myself of too many exciting things.
Probably just discussions about the agenda again, like every first day
of every first meeting. (I bet the German mission sent their intern
again to sit through the boredom.)
So what's the situation there? There are three new proposals I know of,
and some recycled from the Intersessional Intergovernmental Meetings in
2005. Chile
has one on the importance of the public domain, which is
much in line with the Friends of Development - the group that
wants to reform WIPO.
Another
one is from Colombia. It limits itself to proposing that patent
offices in developing countries should get access to commercial patent
databases, so as to more easily identify prior art. Not really
revolutionary.
Rather counter-revolutionary is how the US
proposal comes across, and this is no surprise. They are presenting
a more elaborate version of their website database
proposal from the last round of IIMs. It basically recommends setting up
a website where countries in need of licenses can go looking for private
sector donors. I don't like to call this institutionalised begging, but
no other term comes to mind.
Oh, and for good measure they suggested conducting a study to prove the
benefits of strict copyright protection for developing countries. Some
study that will turn out to be.
Now, on Tuesday morning, we are waiting for the meeting to begin. It
seems that the EU has come up with a common position. But, as EU
positions go, it probably won't be too fascinating.
I'm curious to see if there will be substantive discussion, after
yesterday the country delegates almost killed themselves looking for a
chairman.
