There has been some interesting commentary on Canada's role in the development agenda negotiations at WIPO this week: James Love reports (also here) that Canada was very much against the inclusion of the phrase "access to knowledge" in one of the proposals. Apparently "Canada said it "didn't understand" what "access to knowledge" meant." Love notes that the issue was eventually resolved to include the phrase.
Thiru Balasubramaniam also wrote about Group B's difficulties with 'access to knowledge'.
It will be interesting to get some context on this discussion when the report of the meeting comes out.
Also see Michael Geist's commentary.
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteThe issue here remains somewhat unclarified. While the phrase A2K exists within article 3 of Annex B, it is not entirely clear how the phrase will be interpreted. The full article reads:
"To initiate discussions on how, within WIPO's mandate, to further facilitate access to knowledge and technology for developing countries and LDCs to forster creativity and innovation and to strengthen such existing activities within WIPO."