SUNS4369 Monday 8 February 1999

Development: WIPO invites industry to air views on IPRs



Geneva, Feb 5 (Someshwar Singh) -- The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) began a two-day meeting here Thursday of its newly created Industry Advisory Commission (IAC) to solicit views and advice
directly from the corporate players.

With 20 industry representatives involved, the IAC will seek to identify and review intellectual property issues that may need to be dealt with by WIPO from the specific perspective of industry and the market sector. The senior industry representatives, who have been selected from across the world and from various sectors, have been invited in their personal capacity by the WIPO Director General.

The WIPO-industry interface has a three-part agenda for its first meeting. The first relates to electronic commerce, a rapidly growing multi-billion dollar industry where a number of policy implications, especially those relating to intellectual property issues, need to be sorted out.

The second item relates to "Intellectual property and wealth creation" - examining the role in job creation by attracting investments of both capital and knowledge assets. The last theme to be dealt is "Managing change at the international level." The business people will give their insight into ways policy-makers can keep up with rapid technological changes.

Dr. Kamil Idris, Director General of WIPO noted in his address to the IAC that it marked "an historic shift" in the policy of WIPO and "in the vision which we should like to have for this universal body." He added that the Commission will "ensure that, in particular, our norm-setting activities and the global protection systems will meet with the interests and needs of your respective institutions, industry and the market sector interests."