пятница, 25 сентября 2009 г.

WIPO Partners with Actors and Musicians to Boost Performers’ Rights

Geneva, September 24, 2009
PR/2009/608
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) signed on September 23an agreement with the International Federation of Musicians (FIM) and the International Federation of Actors (FIA) to support efforts to improve recognition of the significant contributions made by actors and musicians around the world.
The agreement, signed by WIPO Director General Francis Gurry, FIA President Agnete G. Haaland and FIM President John Smith, seeks, in particular, to help improve the status of performers in developing countries.

The agreement highlights the connection between IP and labor and the special concerns of cultural workers from the viewpoint of development and cultural diversity. It provides for the organization of joint activities to strengthen performers’ networks and improve their economic and legal status, as well as for raising awareness of the need to support performers. Actors and musicians are an essential element in the development of the creative potential of all economies, particularly in developing countries. It is further anticipated that the agreement will help to galvanize support for the protection of performers at international level.

Treaty negotiations on the protection of audiovisual performances were deadlocked in December 2000 because of a lack of agreement on the issue of transfer of rights from the performer to the producer. Since that time, WIPO has undertaken extensive international consultations to develop information materials on outstanding differences and to improve the flow of information and understanding of the situation of performers. Recent consultations among Member States, held in Geneva, allowed for an open debate on this issue, which remains under consideration of the WIPO General Assembly.

FIA and FIM gather, respectively, unions of musicians and actors from all regions in the world. Together they represent hundreds of thousands of professional performers working both in the sound and audiovisual industry.


In and on behalf of
Mr.Samir, IPPro

четверг, 24 сентября 2009 г.

WIPO Director General Underlines Role of IP in meeting Global Public Policy Challenges

Geneva, September 22, 2009
PR/2009/605
In his opening statement to the annual meetings of the member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Director General Francis Gurry called on member states to work together to ensure that the IP system serves as a stimulus for developing solutions to the global challenges confronting policy makers across the world.
Mr. Gurry welcomed over 40 ministers to the first ever high-level segment of these meetings. He said their participation reflected the expanding recognition of “IP as a major means of creating a secure environment for investment in innovation and creativity and for the diffusion of innovative and creative products and services.” Mr. Gurry appealed to the Organization’s 184 member states to find a “balanced way forward” in advancing the Organization’s norm-setting agenda, and urged them to demonstrate flexibility and understanding in addressing the issues before them.

Mr. Gurry outlined progress in organizational renewal under the Organization’s strategic realignment program, and outlined the various initiatives that have been launched to develop a service-oriented culture within the Organization. He went on to outline some of the major challenges confronting the Organization and the IP community at large.

With regard to the impact of the global economic crisis, Mr. Gurry said negative growth rates in the Patent Cooperation Treaty (-5%) and the Madrid System for the international registration of trademarks (-10%) were anticipated for 2009. He noted that while demand was expected to be sluggish through 2010, he was confident that 2011 would see positive growth in demand for the Organization’s services, which generate 93% of the Organization’s revenue. Mr. Gurry noted that, despite the short term effects of the economic crisis, “it is clear that the long term trend is one of intensified use of the IP system in which knowledge and education are at the center of the economy, development and social change.”

In addressing the question of development and poverty reduction, Mr. Gurry said improving the capacity of developing and least developed countries (LDCs) to benefit from the knowledge economy was the principle underlying the adoption of the WIPO Development Agenda. “We are now at the stage where we must transform that idea into an operational reality,” he said. “That transformation will occur only if there is a collaborative effort and engagement on the part of the member states and the secretariat.” Mr. Gurry stressed the need for member states and the secretariat to “be ambitious and identify and execute projects that make a difference.” He said WIPO’s traditional capacity-building activities will endeavor to “create better linkages between the economic objectives, priorities and resources of countries” ensuring that “IP speaks the language of the economic circumstances and the social context that it addresses.”

The Director General appealed to member states to find common ground in advancing the normative work of the Organization. Failure to do so, he said, would damage multilateralism and open the way to bilateral and plurilateral arrangements at a time when use of technologies is increasingly global. Mr. Gurry said, “Global use of technology calls for a global architecture of norms to ensure that technologies are indeed available everywhere.”

“If we are to retain in this Organization our relevance in rule making we must be able to deal with all the frequencies of the spectrum of technological development,” Mr. Gurry said. “We must be able to make rules both for the latest developments in technology and for traditional knowledge systems . . . the reality of a global organization is that we must be able to deal with all parts of the spectrum.” In this regard, he called on member states “to show flexibility and understanding” in renewing the mandate of the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) on terms that will allow tangible results at the international level.

On the question of copyright in the digital environment, Mr. Gurry outlined the “tumultuous developments” that were occurring which signaled “a fundamental challenge for the institution of copyright”. He said that while the objective of copyright was to “provide a market-based mechanism that extracts some value from cultural transactions to enable creators to lead dignified economic existence while at the same time ensuring the widest possible availability of affordable content,” the question was “how to realize that objective amid the convergence of the digital environment.”

The Director General called on member states to consider a “global consultation or reflection” in the coming year on the fundamental question of how to finance culture in the 21st Century. He noted that piracy was a global issue and called on governments to reflect on “how we can make copyright work in a digital environment where there is no difference in quality between the original and the copy and where the means of reproduction and distribution are available to everyone at insignificant cost”.

In relation to the new strategic objective “Coordination and Development of Global IP Infrastructure” to build platforms to exchange and disseminate best practices, the Director General cited some early concrete results. These include digitization programs for IP offices in developing countries and the establishment of technology and innovation centers as well as database tools offering access to scientific and technical publications free-of-charge to least developed countries.

Within this context, the Director General referred to the PCT roadmap which aims to improve the functioning of the PCT, a procedural treaty that links together the patent offices of the world. He added, “it’s about finding ways to increase, on a voluntary basis, work sharing to decrease unnecessary inefficiencies and to improve the quality of the output of the international patent system and thereby contribute to management of the unsustainable backlog of 4.2 million unprocessed patent applications around the world.” Mr. Gurry stressed that this “is not a norm-making exercise”. He referred to various plurilateral initiatives to address this question stating that the “objective of the roadmap is to bring all of these initiatives under the multilateral umbrella of the PCT.”

Lastly, the Director General highlighted WIPO’s renewed engagement in debates on global public policy issues, such as climate change, stating that “technological innovation will be central to global efforts to deal with the challenges of climate change.” He added “the experience of the IP system and the IP community in the creation and the commercialization and the diffusion or transfer of technology can make a very valuable contribution.” Mr. Gurry also referred to the establishment of the stakeholder’s platform to improve access to published works by the visually impaired.

Mr. Gurry thanked the outgoing Chairman of the WIPO General Assembly, Ambassador Martin I. Uhomoibhi, who is also Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, for his work as Chair. Ambassador Uhomoibhi urged delegates to work together to find solutions to the challenges facing WIPO and the IP community in general. The newly elected Chairman of the General Assembly, Ambassador Alberto Dumont, who is also Argentina’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organizations in Geneva, said the Assemblies provide an opportunity to identify strategies to meet new challenges and urged delegates to collaborate, demonstrate flexibility in their discussions to support the common goal of ensuring that WIPO continues to develop programs for the general good.

Ambassador Dumont welcomed the convening of a high level ministerial segment, which is taking place for the first time in WIPO’s history. This, he said, is a “clear demonstration of the importance which IP has gained in the area of public policy and therefore at the high level of decision making in our governments.” The high level segment is a unique forum for the almost 50 ministers who honor us with their presence – will identify opportunities and challenges which policy makers have to address in the future.

The Assemblies are meeting in Geneva from September 22 to October 1, 2009 to review the Organization’s status of activities and discuss future work.

In & on behalf of
Mr.Samir, IPPro

вторник, 22 сентября 2009 г.

WIPO Symposium Concludes Global Patent Application Backlogs Unsustainable

Geneva, September 18, 2009
PR/2009/604
A two-day international symposium concluded on September 18, 2009 with broad agreement on the need to pool efforts at the international level to address the problem of backlogs in patent applications.
Closing the first Global Symposium for Intellectual Property Authorities, WIPO Director General Francis Gurry referred to recently published data that showed that the global backlog in unprocessed patent applications around the world in 2007 was a staggering 4.2 million. These backlogs have grown on average at a rate of 8.7% over the past five years. “This is unsustainable,” Mr. Gurry said.
“We have moved beyond consciousness of the need to address unsustainable processing of patent applications to action,” Mr. Gurry said, noting that the main challenge of the future is to promote coordinated international action to enhance efficiency of operations and encourage dissemination of best practices in modernizing the infrastructure, operations and management of IP offices.
Work sharing for prosecuting patent applications was suggested as a solution to existing inefficiencies. Patent prosecution highway (PPH) projects were extensively discussed at the Symposium. Participants concluded that the PCT should serve as the backbone for work sharing in relation to patent prosecution to support existing bilateral PPH agreements. Representatives of the Trilateral Offices (European Patent Office, Japan Patent Office and United States Patent and Trademark Office), attending the Symposium signaled their agreement in principle to integrating PCT work products (PCT international preliminary reports on patentability) into their ongoing PPH projects. Pilot projects are to start in early 2010. The Director General said this was a major development that WIPO warmly welcomed.
New initiatives for work sharing were announced at the Symposium. These include the Vancouver group (Australia, Canada, and UK) project for mutual exploitation of search and examination documents; and a Latin American project to exchange search and examination data on patents and trademarks involving nine partners (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, and Uruguay in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank). Mr. Gurry welcomed new collaboration projects. In response to a call for technical assistance from WIPO in these projects for building a common international patent platform, Mr. Gurry said that WIPO is pleased to provide technical assistance in developing the common platform to ensure global compatibility and interoperability of such initiatives.
More than 40 heads of IP offices participated in the event, together with users of the IP system. Appreciation was expressed for new WIPO initiatives outlined by Mr. Gurry on the enhancement of IP databases, including steps to upgrade PATENTSCOPE® with national patent data collection and the recent launch of aRDi (Access to Research for Development and Innovation) to narrow the knowledge gap in least developed countries.
In facilitating the efficiency of patent searches, participants reaffirmed the need for WIPO to play a proactive role in collecting information on the legal status of patents for inclusion in PATENTSCOPE®.
The Symposium also provided a forum for the exchange of experiences and best practices in the area of trademark and industrial design registration, arbitration and mediation services for IP-related disputes, financial management of IP offices, and IP office’s role in promoting innovation in partnership with science and innovation institutions.
In & on behalf of
Mr.Samir,IPPro

пятница, 11 сентября 2009 г.

Проект приказа Роспатента

Об утверждении Перечня должностей федеральной государственной гражданской службы, при назначении на которые граждане и при замещении которых федеральные государственные гражданские служащие Федеральной службы по интеллектуальной собственности, патентам и товарным знакам обязаны представлять сведения о своих доходах, об имуществе и обязательствах имущественного характера, а также сведения о доходах, об имуществе и обязательствах имущественного характера своих супруги (супруга) и несовершеннолетних детей

В соответствии с Указом Президента Российской Федерации от 18 мая 2009 года № 557 «Об утверждении перечня должностей федеральной государственной службы, при назначении на которые граждане и при замещении которых федеральные государственные служащие обязаны представлять сведения о своих доходах, об имуществе и обязательствах имущественного характера, а также сведения о доходах, об имуществе и обязательствах имущественного характера своих супруги (супруга) и несовершеннолетних детей» (Собрание законодательства Российской Федерации, 2009, № 21, ст.2542) п р и к а з ы в а ю :
Утвердить прилагаемый Перечень должностей федеральной государственной гражданской службы, при назначении на которые граждане и при замещении которых федеральные государственные гражданские служащие Федеральной службы по интеллектуальной собственности, патентам и товарным знакам обязаны представлять сведения о своих доходах, об имуществе и обязательствах имущественного характера своих супруги (супруга) и несовершеннолетних детей.
Руководитель Б.П.Симонов
Перечень должностей федеральной государственной гражданской службы
в Федеральной службе по интеллектуальной собственности, патентам и товарным знакам, при назначении на которые граждане и при замещении которых федеральные государственные гражданские служащие обязаны представлять сведения о своих доходах, об имуществе и обязательствах имущественного характера, а также сведения о доходах, об имуществе и обязательствах имущественного характера своих супруги (супруга) и несовершеннолетних детей
Руководитель Федеральной службы по интеллектуальной собственности, патентам и товарным знакам
Заместитель руководителя Федеральной службы по интеллектуальной собственности, патентам и товарным знакам
Помощник руководителя Федеральной службы по интеллектуальной собственности, патентам и товарным знакам

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понедельник, 7 сентября 2009 г.

WIPO Director General underlines role of IP in Mitigating Climate Change

Geneva, September 4, 2009
PR/2009/601
WIPO Director General Francis Gurry welcomed on Friday the adoption of the Global Framework for Climate Services to strengthen production, availability, delivery and application of science-based climate predictions, information and services and underscored the contribution that intellectual property can make in mitigating the climate change.
Speaking at the Third World Climate Conference (WCC-3), in Geneva from 31 August to 4 September hosted by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Mr. Gurry said WIPO is committed to building broader understanding of the important contribution that intellectual property can make in generating and disseminating technological solutions to address the multi-facetted challenges that climate change presents. He said that policies that stimulate the creation and diffusion of technology are directly relevant to an effective response to the challenges of climate change.
The Director General said that the Framework is an innovative response to the urgent need for better climate forecasts to better anticipate and manage weather-related risks. He said that it was a powerful example of what could be achieved through collective commitment and action.
WCC-3 is the third in a series of preparatory meetings taking place in the run up to United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 on a new global climate treaty.

Mr. Samir Rahman
On & in behalf of
Patent and Law firm ‘IPPro’