Traditional Knowledge Action Plan launched
Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat press release, 21 December 2009

NADI, FIJI: The Traditional Knowledge Action Plan for Forum Island Countries has been launched at a workshop on traditional knowledge, convened by WIPO and the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat from 15-16 December 2009, in Nadi, Fiji. Implementation of the Action Plan will initially involve development of national systems of TK protection. These systems are then expected to provide an enabling environment for cultural industries to grow and contribute to economic development and improvement of livelihoods across the region. Forum Island Countries currently included in the work under the Action Plan are Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Palau, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu. Read the press release … Download the Action Plan [pdf] …

WIPO Traditional Knowledge Committee Pushes Toward Text-Based Talks
ICTSD Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest, 16 December 2009

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: Under the guidance of newly elected chair Juan José Gómez Camacho of Mexico, the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore of the World Intellectual Property Organization came within “a centimetre” of agreeing on a framework for how its negotiations will proceed between now and September 2011, when the IGC is supposed to present the WIPO General Assembly with texts outlining a legal instrument (or instruments) on the protection of the three topics in its mandate. Read the article …

WIPO Inventor of the Year 1995 Edgardo Vazquez brought home the Gold Medal for the modular housing called Vazbuilt. This is a system for building fire-, termite-, typhoon- and earthquake-proof houses in less than a month using prefabricated posts and panels.
Such a system called Vazbuilt is reportedly capable of building within weeks a house with prefabricated materials that can withstand typhoons and earthquakes.

The VAZBUILT system is practical and cost-effective. It does not require special skills or heavy equipment, which allows for easy assembling and dismantling of components for expansion and home improvements. Due to the simple construction requirement, a VAZBUILT house takes less time to build with lesser workforce.

The VAZBUILT Building Technology was invented by Mr. Edgardo G. Vazquez, President & CEO of VAZBUILT. This invention garnered a lot of recognition and awards from various sectors both locally and abroad. In 1993, Mr. Vazquez was awarded the Golden Medal Award as Most Outstanding Inventor of the year in the Creative Research Category by the Filipino Inventors Society. In 1995, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) based in Geneva Awarded him Best Invention of the Year for his modular housing system.

Inspiring words from the earthquake-proof house builder.

It is our vision to provide decent, elegant and affordable quality homes for every family!
Gary “Kabahay” Vazquez
Filipino Inventor
VAZBUILT CEO

Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore of the World Intellectual Property Organization, 15th session
7 December – 11 December 2009 (Geneva, Switzerland)

The fifteenth session marked the resumption of the IGC’s substantive work after a lengthy focus on procedural questions. The meeting reviewed draft provisions for the protection of traditional cultural expressions and traditional knowledge, and considered options for future work on intellectual property and genetic resources. Initial proposed amendments to a number of key documents presented by the secretariat will be taken into account in the IGC’s “text-based negotiations” in 2010 in line with its new mandate, agreed by the WIPO General Assembly in October 2009. The new mandate calls for a “clearly defined work program” and makes provision for four formal sessions of the IGC and three intersessional working group meetings over the next two years. No consensus was reached on how to handle intersessional meetings, and discussion will continue at the IGC’s next session, likely to be held in March or April 2010. Before the next meeting, the secretariat will revise the working documents on traditional cultural expressions and traditional knowledge to reflect proposed amendments and comments. Governments are also invited to submit papers describing national experiences on genetic resources, for preparation of a revised working document. Read WIPO’s press release … Read a report by IP Watch, 8 December 2009 … Read a report by IP Watch, 10 December 2009 … Read a report by IP Watch, 14 December 2009 …

Writers! Sign onto letter in support of copyright treaty to benefit blind and disabled people

Cory Doctorow”s boingboing column today mentioned Knowledge Ecology International’s Writers and Journalists Open Letter in Support of WIPO treaty for People who are Blind or have other Disabilities

This important open letter says in part:

“In 1985, WIPO and UNESCO published are report calling for a new treaty to solve this problem, and create a global system of distributing works to persons who are blind and have other disabilities. Today WIPO is considering just such a treaty. We urge every country to move swiftly to support and enact such a treaty, so that a person who is blind, or has other severe disabilities, can read what we write.”

Cory sez,

doctorow Writers needed to sign onto letter in support of copyright treaty for blind/disabled access http://tinyurl.com/yeox3l3
PLEASE RT!

As a reader, I want to be able to read what I want to read.   Not being able to would be… indescribably sad.

As a human being, I think that everyone should have access to the world’s knowledge.

As a writer, I hope that anyone wanting to read my words has the opportunity to read my words.

I’m no Cory Doctorow, but I too urge all writers to support this.   Thanks!

Accessibility is necessary to build a healthy global community.

[And now back to working on my novel.]

We’ve never covered a celebrity involved in sex scandal but we’ve discovered something a bit more interesting. It’s being reported that Tiger Woods is linked to three different women. Rachel Uchitel, Jaimee Grubbs and Kalika Moquin. There’s speculation that Tiger has been in a “relationship” with at least one of these women for more than two years. Tiger has recently admitted that he “regrets those transgressions with all of my heart”. That’s not exactly admitting anything. No doubt over the next couple of weeks Team Tiger will be formulating a plan to attempt to keep his pristine billion dollar image from being tarnished as much as possible. What he’ll admit to remains to be seen. Gossip magazines and even more mainstream publications are already plastering this story on their covers. The three women mentioned above might certainly come forward and open up about their alleged affair with the highest earning sports athlete in history.

In doing some general research we stumbled upon something very interesting. In the last week there have been a number of domains that have been registered since the original story broke involving Rachel Uchitel (pictured below left). Many are combinations of Tiger’s name and the story. TigerWoodsScandal.com, TigerWoodsAffair.com and of course all three women involved in the stories have their name matching domains taken. Which truthfully is surprising especially in the case of Jaimee Grubbs. Ms. Grubbs seems to want some kind of career in entertainment, she’s appeared on “VH1’s Tool Academy”. It’s surprising that an aspiring entertainer/actress wouldn’t have secured her name months if not years ago.

Out of all of the domains that we discovered the one that was the most interesting by far is TigersGirls.com. (UPDATE: WARNING THE FOLLOWING DOMAIN IS NOW POINTING TO A PORNOGRAPHIC LANDING PAGE) Why is this domain so interesting you ask? Well it was registered nearly two years ago on January 17th, 2007. It was registered with private whois information, meaning it’s somewhat untraceable. So why and better yet who exactly would want to register that particular domain as far back as 2007?  The name itself seems to imply that Tiger had “girls”, meaning more than one with whom he might have had transgressions with back then. If I had to guess I would have to say that this seems more likely to be someone within Team Tiger. Perhaps a jealous golfing peer? I would imagine that the PGA tour is just as much a gossip filled boys club as some male dominated companies.

Still if I had to put money on it, I’d say it was someone close within his personal circle. Someone who has known about Tiger and his “transgressions” for some time. Someone who knows that eventually every celebrity cheater gets caught. Someone who might be thinking about possibly publishing a book perhaps. “Tigers Girls”, what a great title! No doubt a tell all story about Tiger and the women who he’s brought back to his den (please forgive the pun) would sell millions of copies. You might even be able to speculate that Tiger’s introduction to Jaimee Grubbs might have been a well-calculated move by an insider. I’m quite sure that no one gains access to Tiger without going through some screening process. After all, of the three women who are being linked to the golf superstar she seems to be the only one who is documenting it by saving voicemails and text messages.

Well if I were Tiger I’d act quickly on trying to first find out who exactly registered this domain. Second I’d move even more quickly there after to take the domain away (via WIPO) from this possible conspirator. It’s an unfortunate situation that he has put himself and his family in. Only time will tell if his marriage can survive this scandal.

UPDATE: Since discovering that TigersGirls.com points to an advertisement for a pornographic site we’re doing our best to track down who exactly owns this domain.

WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore: Fifteenth Session
7 December – 11 December 2009 (Geneva, Switzerland)

Following the renewed (and strongest to date) mandate received by the General Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organization, the IGC will undertake negotiations to ensure the effective protection of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions through the development of an international legal instrument. Visit the meeting website …

WIPO’s PATENTSCOPE® now includes the patent data collections of eight patent offices: African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), Cuba, Israel, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa and Vietnam.

WIPO has been working closely with these patent offices to ensure the data collections are fully searchable and has provided partial funding for Israel’s computerization process.

The availability of Korean patents is important as there is a lot of technology developed there and these are otherwise rather difficult to access. They have not yet been carried by Delphion, for example.

He lodged a complaint with the WIPO under the UDRP against a domain name owner he said was violating his trademark (see what I did there). An American individual registered a domain name which linked his name with various criminal acts — however the site didn’t accuse him of doing the acts, they just wanted to know why he won’t come out and publicly deny the serious allegations, a satirical reference to Beck’s own interviewing style — Beck promptly took legal advice and this led to the WIPO hearing. The extra-legal Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy is not perfect, it’s been widely criticised from the very outset for issues of accountability and bias not least in that the initial source of the policy is the World Intellectual Property Organisation and asking the WIPO how you should deal with copyright disputes between trademark owners and domain name owners is a little bit like asking the KKK how you should deal with disputes between white people and black people.

On the other hand, this dispute is quite a reassuring note that in the case of fairly clear situations the process does work. The UDRP deals with trademark violation and this is not a trademark violation so the action can’t succeed and that’s what’s been decided, although on a different ground because the domain name was held to be similar enough to be confusing.

It’s the specific details of the dispute which are quite entertaining. The reason behind the registrant registering the specific domain name he did is because it’s an Internet meme. It’s not the registrant making false allegations of felonies by Glenn Beck, he’s just copying a joke that’s on FARK. The third pillar of the test requires the trademark owner to prove bad faith so this is a huge deal. The thing is that Internet memes are elements from a (primarily American) subculture and it’s impossible to assume that any particular WIPO panel sitting in Geneva will know a lolcat from a rickroll. This means that the respondent’s submission needed to include a potted history of the Internet meme in between naturally quite dry analysis of relevant precedent and procedural (as opposed to legal) argument. It’s inordinately awesome to read about Leroy Jenkins on letter headed paper.

Perhaps most hearteningly of all is the statement released by the registrant after the decision was made – in the statement he gives Beck control of the domain (despite the panel ruling in the registrant’s favour) and says that the only reason he even disputed the point was to defend the American Constitution’s protections of free speech from Beck. It’s a surprisingly powerful and elegant declaration of patriotism for a dispute that came out of an Internet in-joke.

Arstechnica have a good, factually oriented review of the dispute that’s worth a read.

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Selasa, 10 November 2009

Mahasiswa IPB Temukan Mikroba ‘Google’ Penyubur Tanah

BOGOR–Ali Zum Mashar, seorang mahasiswa Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB), berhasil menemukan mikroba yang dapat mengembalikan kondisi kesuburan tanah. Berkat penemuannya tersebut, Mahasiswa S3 program studi Ekonomi Sumber Daya Lingkungan ini memperoleh penghargaan Hak kekayaan Intelektual Luar Biasa tahun 2009.

Mikroba yang diberi nama BIOP 2000Z ini, kata Ali, mempunyai prinsip kerja yang cukup unik. “Mikroba ini dapat mencari dan menemukan potensi tersembunyi yang ada di dalam tanah. Jadi kayak google (mesin pencari situs di internet, red) gitu,” ucapnya kepada wartawan, Kamis malam (29/10).

Dengan memberdayakan mikroba ini, ujar Ali, tanah yang berpasir pun dapat disuburkan. “Segala jenis tanah dapat disuburkan kembali. Meskipun tanah itu tanah bekas tambang, tanah berpasir, atau tanah gambut,” katanya. Waktu yang dibutuhkan untuk mengembalikan kondisi tanah-tanah tersebut pun, ujar Ali, terbilang cukup singkat.

Jika dengan menggunakan metode konvensional, sebidang tanah bekas tambang membutuhkan waktu tak kurang 30 tahun untuk subur kembali, tak demikian jika menggunakan mikroba ‘google’ ini. “Untuk tanah bekas tambang, hanya butuh 3 tahun untuk mengembalikan kondisi tanah menjadi subur kembali,” jelasnya. Hal ini, kata Ali, sudah pernah diujicobakan di daerah Kerengpangi, Kalimantan Tengah. Dengan menggunakan 3 liter mikroba untuk tiap hektarnya, Kerengpangi yang merupakan tempat penambangan emas dapat disuburkan kembali. Sedangkan untuk tanah berpasir, membutuhkan waktu yang lebih singkat. Dengan menggunakan mikroba sebanyak 8 liter per hektarnya, untuk mengembalikan kesuburan tanah hanya butuh waktu 3 sampai 4 bulan. ”Dengan pemakaian mikroba ini, juga dapat menghemat pemakaian pupuk,” cetus Ali.

Lebih jauh Ali menuturkan, setiap tanah pasti mempunyai keunggulan masing-masing. “Pasti ada, tak mungkin tidak,” kata dia. Ditambah lagi, kondisi iklim tropis di Indonesia. Dengan adanya iklim tropis, semakin menambah potensi kesuburan tanah yang ada di Indonesia. Ali mengatakan, penemuan mikroba ‘google’ ini terjadi pada tahun 2000 di lahan gambut di Kalimantan. Ali yang juga pernah bertransmigrasi ke Kalimantan ini mengatakan, mengenai efek samping dari pemakaian mikroba ini, hanya meningkatkan kesuburan tanah. ”Tidak ada efek negatif dari pemakaian mikroba ‘google’ ini,” jelasnya.

Tak hanya menyuburkan tanah, ujar Ali, beberapa pengujian telah membuktikan terdapat peningkatan produktivitas tanaman pertanian. Alumni S1 pertanian Unsoed Purwokerta Jawa Tengah, ini mengatakan mikroba tersebut telah diuji di beberapa tanaman, antara lain adalah kedelai dan jagung.

Saat ini, ungkap Ali, mikroba ini telah berhasil merambah pasaran dalam negeri dan luar negeri. “Petani di Jawa Timur dan Jawa Tengah telah banyak yang menggunakan mikroba ini,” katanya. Tak hanya itu, Malaysia dan Australia turut mengimpor mikroba ‘google’. Saat ini, mikroba ‘google’ ini dipasarkan oleh PT Alam Lestari sebagai fabrikator induk. Tak membutuhkan lama bagi Ali untuk mematenkan mikroba ‘google’ miliknya ini.

Mikroba ‘google’ telah mendapatkan empat lisensi paten dari WIPO, sebuah lembaga paten yang berdomisili di Swedia. “Teknologi turunan dari mikroba ini juga akan kami patenkan,” tegasnya.

Sumber : Milis Agromania

Wie beurteilen die Autoren die Lage der sozialen Marktwirtschaft?
S. 36 f M27
S. 37 f M28

WIPO Director General Wraps up Official Visit to India Topped by Meeting with Prime Minister
WIPO press release, 13 November 2009

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: WIPO Director General Francis Gurry wrapped up a five-day official visit in India, where he held a series of high-level meetings. A recurring theme was the importance of advancing international discussions on the protection of traditional knowledge, genetic resources and folklore. Gurry observed that there is a real opportunity to achieve tangible results in this area with the renewed mandate of the WIPO’s Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore. Officials stressed that this question is very important for India and developing countries in general. Gurry said India is a pioneer in dealing with questions relating to TK, noting its impressive, and publicly available, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library. Indian officials said India is ready to share its extensive experience in developing its TKDL and to strengthen cooperation in developing and populating other databases. Read the press release …

The Israel Patent Office has published a questionnaire offering users of the PCT Receiving Office in Israel the opportunity to express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the service provided and to comment on tentative plans to go paper-less. 

I, for one, have always found Head of Receiving Office, Dr. Michael Bart and his staff forever courteous and helpful, and, apart from filing in Geneva on Mondays where the Paris deadline was Saturday or Sunday, or for saving clients excess page fees for gene sequences, prefer filing in Israel. 

I can’t link to the questionnaire, but Liat King liatki@justice.gov.il at the Israel Patent Office will send one to interested parties.  The deadline for responding is the end of November. 

Sultanate of Oman has acceded to the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. On November 22, 2009 the Convention will enter into force with respect to Oman  and it will become a member of UPOV (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants) founded by the said International Convention.

UPOV Notification No. 109

I’ve just received word that the European Union is ready to ratify the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty (WCT) and Performances and Phonographs Treaty (WPPT). Although all EU Member State have functionally implemented the treaties into their laws since the adoption of the EU Copyright Directive in 2001, the EU and the Member States will be ratifying the treaties jointly. The official procedure will take place on December 14 in Geneva, at the beginning of the next meeting of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright.

There has been a lot of legislative news on the copyright front coming out of Europe lately. Earlier this week, I reported on the decision of the French Constitutional Council to green light the HADOPI graduated response law. This was followed up by BBC news articles that reported details of the UK’s plans for their own graduated response law.

With so many of Canada’s trading partners making real progress on copyright reform, I wonder what impact these stories will have on Canadian government officials currently working on our own copyright reform Bill.  The consultation website states that “[u]pdates are needed to ensure that Canada’s copyright laws are modern and so that Canada can regain its place as a leader in the global digital economy”. Hopefully, these “updates” happening in Europe will not go unnoticed!

Perpetual Protection of Traditional Knowledge “Not On Table” at WIPO
IP Watch, 22 October 2009

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: Protection of traditional knowledge under intellectual property rights may have a time limit, though determining duration of protection measures will be more difficult than it is with Western scientific innovation, World Intellectual Property Organization Director General Francis Gurry said. “I think perpetual protection is not on the table,” Gurry told journalists on 21 October. There is a conceptual difference in duration of protection, he said. In Western science there is a moment of discovery, a date at from which protection can proceed, whereas traditional knowledge tends to be communal, collective, and passed on from generation to generation, he added. The IGC received its strongest mandate yet at the WIPO assemblies earlier this month, and is now tasked with undertaking text-based negotiations towards an “international legal instrument” for the effective protection of genetic resources, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions. Read the article …

The EU Commission today published its “Communication on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy”. This amounts to the Commission’s response to the consultation on its Green Paper on Copyright, to which European Blind Union (EBU) responded.

Notably, the EBU response called for the harmonisation of EU copyright exceptions for print disabled people. This call has not been met by the Communication. In short the Commission wants to organise a “round table” dialogue between disabled people’s organisations and publishers. This looks a bit like the WIPO stakeholder platform some disabled people’s organisations are already engaged in with publishers’ and other rights holders’ organisations.

http://bit.ly/JcY3W

International Conference Calls for Concrete Outcomes on TK, GRs & TCEs
WIPO press release, 13 November 2009

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: An international conference on traditional knowledge was held on 13 November 2009, in New Delhi, India, organized by the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in cooperation with WIPO and the Government of India. The conference addressed the state of play in international protection of traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions; and national and community experiences in effective protection of TK and TCEs. WIPO Director General Francis Gurry said ongoing WIPO negotiations need to be approached in a constructive manner with a sense of pragmatism. At the international level, solutions must be found at a level of generality that allows national jurisdictions the flexibility to operate. Gurry applauded India’s achievements in establishing frameworks to protect its ancient traditional knowledge systems, such as the “Indian Systems of Medicine” initiative which covers traditional healthcare systems and medicine. He also noted the enactment of legislative protections for traditional knowledge and genetic resources (Biological Diversity Act 2002; Patents (Amendment) Act 2005) and the establishment of a Traditional Knowledge Digital Library to supplement these laws. Read the press release …

Indonesia to host international meeting on traditional knowledge, folklore protection
Xinhua, 21 November 2009

BALI, INDONESIA: A meeting of the Like-Minded Countries on an international legal instrument for the protection of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore is scheduled to be held from 23-27 November 2009, in Bali, Indonesia. Delegates from 33 countries and experts from international organizations are expected to attend the meeting, which aims to prepare a draft text for an international legal instrument to be presented at the 15th session of the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, to be held from 7-11 December 2009, in Geneva, Switzerland. Read the Xinhua article … Read a Jakarta Post article on the issue …