U.S. Engagement Critical to Intellectual Property Progress, says WIPO’s Director General
The U.S. needs to sustain its involvement in the intellectual property treaty process, and “90 percent” of compliance issues surrounding IP need the force of the private sector, said World Intellectual Property Organization Director General Francis Gurry at a George Washington Law School lecture Thursday night. He outlined a host of “shifts” facing the IP community, including how corporations are investing overwhelmingly in intangible goods, and the explosion of IP investment in such countries as China, Japan and Korea. Gurry said multilateral organizations like WIPO need to “resize” the scope of their “ambitions” to better serve the “extraordinarily dynamic” arena of IP.
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Gurry applauded WIPO’s work at the Marrakesh conference earlier this year, which produced a treaty granting certain copyright exemptions for the blind. “If Marrakesh was a successful treaty, it was because of the engagement of the United States of America,” he said. Gurry said the U.S. must have similar “engagement” on the issue of “traditional knowledge.” He said he couldn’t “overemphasize how important” traditional knowledge is for developing countries.
Gurry gave the example of an indigenous African tribe that uses a certain plant to suppress hunger. Eventually, a Western scientist arrives, identifies the potent ingredient in the plant and patents it, even though the tribe knew about its usefulness long before the scientist did, he said. “The original, empirical observation is not in our system,” he said, adding that U.S. involvement in the issue would “ensure an outcome that is acceptable."
IP issues are “vastly more complex” than they were in the past and “it goes without saying that WIPO can’t do everything in this environment,” said Gurry. WIPO can assist “global intellectual property systems” as the “demand surge” in IP applications continues to rise, he said. Gurry said that in 1994, the number of international patent applications, under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, by China, Japan and Korea represented 7 percent of patents worldwide. Last year, it was 38 percent, he said. It’s “very, very important to have a rules-based system” for this kind of environment to ensure “an even playing field,” said Gurry.
Gurry acknowledged the international community “has not been good at compliance.” Multilateral organizations such as WIPO shouldn’t play the role of enforcer, he said. “Our focus should be on getting engagement, getting an even playing field and leave others to play the role of bad cop."
Gurry wants to see a “global conversation about a seamless, global, legal, digital marketplace,” he said. “We have a seamless, global, digital marketplace, but it’s an illegal one.” Gurry called for the development of a “road map” to regulate IP, the vast responsibility for which should be on the private sector, he said.
The shift from tangible to intangible assets in S&P 500 Index companies highlights the growing level of competition over IP, said Gurry. He quoted former Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao as saying that IP is becoming “the basis of competition.” In 1978, the same firms had 95 percent of investments in tangible goods, but by 2010, 80 percent of their investments were in intangibles, said Gurry.
IP competition can be seen by the “smartphone wars,” the race by nations to secure research and university facilities or the general competition over talented tech minds, he said. The “dark side” of this competition is “espionage,” another example of the “increasing value of intangible assets,” said Gurry.