Reformation of Intellectual Property system

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From the Diverse Women for Diversity
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CALL TO REFORM INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SYSTEM

At a recent conference on the Future of the World Intellectual Property
Organisation in Geneva, the system of patents, copyright and other
intellectual property rights came under public attack for benefiting a
minority at the expense of the majority.

By Martin Khor
Third World Network Features


The system of patents, copyright and other intellectual property rights is
coming under public attack, including from famous scientists and well-known
law professors, who say that this system has gone too far in benefiting a
few people at the expense of the majority.

The critics are concerned and even angry that patents and copyright are
given (mainly to companies in developed countries) too freely and on terms
that unfairly penalise consumers, researchers and small producers.

The wide range of criticisms emerged at a conference on the Future of the
World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) organised by the
Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue in Geneva in September.

Among the problems raised were that the intellectual property rights (IPR)
system is hampering the free flow of information, raising the cost of
computer software, hampering scientists from advancing research, reducing
the public's access to information and raising the cost of medicines.

Among the participants were Sir John Suston, Nobel Prize winner and leader
of the Cambridge-based scientific team that uncovered the human genome;
Richard Stallman, a pioneer of the free software movement (which led among
other things to the Linux operating system); and many academic professors
specialising in IPR law.

Suston expressed concern that databases containing scientific information
are increasingly placed under copyright, making it difficult and costly for
researchers to have access, and thus impeding research.

He advocates that scientific data be placed in public databases which
researchers can freely use. When he completed his work on mapping the human
genome, Suston's team quickly published the results in a scientific
journal, making it available to all.

'We put the details on a public database so everyone can have access and
do their own research,' he said.

He spoke against the present practice of patenting of genes, which is an
abuse of the patent system as the gene sequences are discoveries and not
inventions. He described the attempt by European governments to tighten
copyright on databases as 'absolutely retrograde'.

'We need ways to tame the market, and conduct research in ways that are
not purely market driven,' he said. 'We need to restore trust, because I am
afraid the human race will not survive if we don't restore trust between
the scientists and science.'

Stallman, who is president of the Free Software Foundation, said that IPRs
were a restriction on the public's access to information and essential
goods, and should not be termed as 'rights'.

'Patents granted for software only benefit very few, who are given the
chance to sue, whilst the rest are threatened with potential suits,' he
said. 'There are negative effects for software developers and computer users.'

Librarians, scholars and students are also worried that higher copyright
regulations are preventing access to information.

Jukka Liedes of the Finland Education Ministry, who is in charge of the
country's library system and access to information policy, said that in the
past it was considered that 'the less there was IP or copyright, the better.'

However, at present consumers are constrained by copyright terms and
access to information has become a concern, he said. The copyright system
has effects on cultural diversity, cultural expressions and on the
promotion of creativity.

For Volker Grassmuch of Humboldt University in Berlin, the digital
revolution (sparked by the personal computer and the Internet) had made
information, editing and copying available to many.

However, there was now a 'digital counter-revolution', through
restrictions placed on computer users, for instance on what they are
allowed to download. Moreover, he said, copyright law mainly benefits not
the authors or musicians but the major industry owners. The consumers and
small producers pay the price.

Several speakers stressed that they were not against intellectual property
per se, but that there should be a balance between the monopoly privileges
given to the patent or copyright holders, and the rights and welfare of the
public.

Their concern was that the balance had tilted very much in favour of the
IPR holders, which are able to jack up prices of their products, affecting
consumers' access, whilst also preventing other producers from competing
with them.

Dr R Sothi, director of Consumers' International's Asian office (based in
Kuala Lumpur), said a study of copyright laws in five Asian countries had
shown that the IP system is making educational materials inaccessible to
the poor as it raised the cost and prevented copying. A one-size-fits-all
system is unsuitable to treat countries at different stages of development.

The health organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres showed data on how
medicines for AIDS patients had been maintained at high levels because of
patents. It also exposed the fact that 97% of patents worldwide are held in
the developed countries, whilst 80% of patents in the developing countries
also belong to residents of the rich countries. Thus those who benefit from
the IP system are overwhelmingly from the developed countries.

The patent system in the United States is being distorted by recent
practices, according to several American academics. Brian Kahin of the
University of Michigan said the standards for granting patents had been
lowered, so many more patents are being granted.

He added that the range of products for which patents are granted has also
expanded to include, for example, life forms, software and business
methods. As a result, many patents that are given are of questionable validity.

The seminar participants were worried that the US model, which is
unsuitable even for Americans, is now being exported to the developing
countries, where it is even more inappropriate and will cause more harm.

They were referring firstly to the agreement on intellectual property in
the World Trade Organisation, and secondly to the attempts by the developed
countries to create new treaties in WIPO (such as the substantive patent
law treaty and the broadcasters' rights treaty) that would 'harmonise' the
developing countries' IPR laws with the laws of the US and other developed
countries.

'This harmonisation attempt is immoral and the last insult to developing
countries,' said Dr Graham Dutfield of Queen Mary's University in Britain.
'Japan would not have developed if it had these IPR laws, and the big
companies of Europe could not have taken off if they were disallowed from
copying technology.

'In the past the IP system allowed countries to catch up as it
differentiated among countries, but now the harmonisation process will
block developing countries from catching up.'

Well-known American academic Prof. Jerome Reichmann said that the proposed
new WIPO treaties 'would transmit a dysfunctional US system of intellectual
property to the rest of the world. It is utterly unfeasible to do that, and
it is completely wrong.'

'Why should the developing countries participate in a standard setting
exercise which would be bad for them and also bad for the US and EU,' he
added. 'How can any good come out of it and why should the developing
countries accept it?' He called for a stop to such 'harmonisation'
attempts, and this was supported by other participants.

The seminar also discussed many ideas for reforming WIPO so that it would
not, as now, only promote IPRs but be able to consider IPRs within the
broader context of development. A declaration on the future of WIPO to that
effect is under preparation. - Third World Network Features.

-ends-

About the writer: Martin Khor is Director of the Third World Network.

When reproducing this feature, please credit Third World Network Features
and (if applicable) the cooperating magazine or agency involved in the
article, and give the byline. Please send us cuttings.

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