CIEL Participates in Experts Meeting on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Development Agenda and Treaty On Access To Knowledge

February 4, 2005

An Experts Meeting on the WIPO Development Agenda and Treaty on Access to Knowledge (A2K) was held from February 3-4, 2005 in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting was organized by the Consumer Project on Technology (CPTech), Third World Network (TWN), and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the follow up to the proposal for the "Establishment of a Development Agenda for WIPO," including the Proposed A2K Knowledge (background on the WIPO Development Agenda is available at www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/futureofwipo.html and at http://www.ciel.org/Publications/pubtae.html). The invited participants included developing countries negotiators; key academics, and civil society NGOs from developed and developing countries representing diverse interests and areas of expertise.

The two-day meeting began with a short review of the status of the WIPO Development Agenda and proceeded with a detailed discussion on the proposed treaty on Access to Knowledge, including proposals for an instrument on sharing access to government funded research and for minimum global limitations and exceptions in the area of copyright. The meeting also focused on emerging issues for access to knowledge including the control of anti-competitive practices, the open access publishing movement, promotion of open source/free software, and proposals to address problems of patents on (Internet and other) standards, and on public goods like the HapMap or Human Genome databases. Finally, there was also discussion on strategy and the appropriate fora for the promotion of an A2K campaign. A public archived discussion list for the meeting is available at http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k-discuss.