Does IP have a role in sustainable development? Of course it does!

Does intellectual property have a role in sustainable development?  Of course it does!  But the World Intellectual Property Organization, a UN agency, seems uncertain as to whether it has a role to play in implementing the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

As I note in a draft book chapter, WIPO's preliminary analysis of the ways in which its work supported SDGs viewed most of WIPO’s work as contributing to SDG 9, the building of infrastructure and industrialization, as well as goal 8, that of economic growth.

Surprisingly few of WIPO’s activities were viewed by WIPO as contributing to the SDGs of education, hunger, protecting biodiversity, combating climate change, or ensuring human health.

"Developed" countries argue "that only a few goals apply to the work of WIPO, and others argue that there should be no ‘cherrypicking’ as all the goals in one way or another do apply to WIPO’s work as a UN agency."  The view of the "developed" countries, here, is completely ridiculous; it is clear that intellectual property plays an important role in relation to many SDGs, including those related to food and agriculture, health, innovation, climate change, biodiversity, and technology transfer.

The world intellectual property system, at present, also sometimes works contrary to achievement of the SDGs, by locking up agricultural innovation, inflating drug prices, stalling innovation, rewarding the invention and sale of dirty technologies, locking up biodiversity, and preventing technology transfer. There is no shortage of proposals for reform that would help to address these problems.  (See the work of Peter Drahos, Matthew Rimmer, and Ahmed Abdel-Latif, among  many others.)  Industry players note the important role of intellectual property  in potentially stalling climate-friendly innovation; this is why Tesla has adopted open patent policies to encourage the take-up and spread of electric vehicle technology.

WIPO and its member states should acknowledge the links between intellectual property and both sustainable and unsustainable development.  The UN sustainable development agenda requires WIPO, as a UN agency, and its member states to build and retool world intellectual property institutions for sustainable development. 

US Presidential Candidates on IP Issues

IP-Watch has a good article (subscriber only) on the US presidential candidates' positions on IP issues. Industry associations like the Business Software Alliance, the Consumer Electronics Association, and the International Trademark Association are hot on the campaign trail.

A quick summary of the candidates' positions on IP:

• On copyright:
  
• Obama wants greater enforcement and copyright reform. He thinks the Bush administration should have done more to pursue enforcement cases at the WTO. He also supported Creative Commons licensing of presidential debates. (Update Sept 22: he has Harold Varmus, advocate of open-access research, on his team of scientific advisors)
  
• McCain wants to crack down on piracy
  
• On patents:
  
• Obama suggests reform of the patent system, which would create a “gold-plated” patent much less vulnerable to court challenge while also ensuring that "where dubious patents are being asserted, the PTO could conduct low-cost, timely administrative proceedings to determine patent validity."
  
• McCain argues that "too much protection can stifle the proliferation of important ideas and impair legitimate commerce in new products to the detriment of our entire economy." McCain wants to provide alternatives to litigation in resolving patent challenges.
• On net neutrality
• McCain doesn't believe in net neutrality.
• Obama does.
  

CIPO on Intellectual Property and Competetiveness

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has made a submission to the Competition Policy Review Panel. They make several points:

on trademark registration:

• Canada should join the Madrid system of international registration of trade-marks offers trade-mark owners, which allows trade-mark owners to have their marks protected in multiple member countries by filing one application for registration with the local IP office
  

• Canada should ratify the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks, which would mean "more harmonized policies with respect to registration and maintenance of trade-marks, and a somewhat stronger voice for Canada in negotiating ongoing changes to the international trade-mark regime."

on patent commercialization:

• "improving access to relevant IP data" for SMEs, since such access is "instrumental to the identification of successful commercialization partnerships both domestically and internationally"
• "better support for technology transfer capacity in universities and promote a culture of entrepreneurship and commercialization in these settings"

on harmonization generally:

• Although they don't mention the WIPO copyright treaties directly, they push international IP harmonization hard, arguing that a
  

"“tyranny of small differences” between regimes that can impose significant costs on Canadian businesses operating in foreign markets. Addressing these “small differences” through initiatives that harmonize the processes of registration and maintenance of IP rights is likely to effect a positive change in both Canada's attractiveness as a place to do business and in the global outlook of Canadian companies."

"Greater harmonization of administrative processes also allows foreign enterprises wishing to invest in or partner with Canadian firms to register and protect their intellectual property without adjusting to as many of the particularities of the Canadian IP system."