New Proposals for WIPO's Development Agenda

According to Intellectual Property Watch on April 6, 2005, the fourteen co-sponsors of the proposal for the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s new Development Agenda have submitted detailed elaborations of their proposals for incorporating development into WIPO’s work. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran, Kenya, Peru, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Venezuela have asked the WIPO Secretariat to distribute the proposal to all WIPO Member States for consideration at two meetings to be held next week: an April 11-13 Inter-sessional Intergovernmental Meeting on the Development Agenda (IIM) and an April 14-15 meeting of the Permanent Committee on Cooperation for Development Related to Intellectual Property (PCIPD). Among other things, the co-sponsors have recommended independent, evidence-based “Development Impact Assessment� (DIA), the incorporation of provisions to recognise the difference between developed and developing WIPO Member States, and greater public consultation prior to any norm-setting discussion in WIPO.