The outcome of the meeting will provide input for the 'Friends of Development' Group, which has called for the establishment of a Development Agenda at WIPO. An executive summary of the Maastricht seminar (attached below) will be presented at the WIPO meeting.
International Seminar - Contributions to the Development Agenda on Intellectual Property Rights
TRIPS as it stands is against the interests of developing countries, and needs reform. In developing their own patent law, developing countries need to recognize that there is now near consensuses among informed observers that patent law and practice have, in some cases, overshot, and need to be reformed. That is the burden of the recent NAS/NRC report on "A Patent System for the 21st Century.
(Richard Nelson George Blumenthal Professor of International and Public Affairs, Business, and Law, Columbia University and keynote speaker at the Maastricht Seminar)
Executive Summary
As a result of an initiative of academic professors and researchers, the International Seminar Contributions to the Development Agenda on Intellectual Property Rights - took place at the United Nations University (UNU-INTECH), in Maastricht, on September 23 and 24, 2005.
The main focus of the Seminar was to explore important issues raised in the realm of the proposal presented at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) by a Group of developing countries the Group of Friends of Development centered on existing challenges to accommodate development goals with the generation of innovation and, more specifically, with IP use (www.wipo.org)
The document prepared by the Group of Friends of Development provokes important reflections on four main dimensions: norm setting on IP, technology transfer, W
'"/>
Contact: Wangu Mwangi
mwangi@intech.unu.edu
31-433-506-365
United Nations University
26-Sep-2005