[GKD] Drive for Patent-free Innovation Gathers Pace

[Seth Johnson]

(Forwarded from CNI Copyright list)

-- Forwarded message -- 
From: James Love 
To: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property 
Sent: 7/10/03 7:03 PM 
Subject: Nature: Drive for patent-free innovation gathers pace -  Kamil
Idris is being asked to assess the merits of an open approach to
intellectual property

Nature reports that WIPO has agreed to organize the meeting on open
development models... jamie

Francis Gurry, an assistant director-general at the WIPO, said that the
organization welcomed the idea. "The use of open and collaborative
development models for research and innovation is a very important and
interesting development," he said in a statement. "The director-general
looks forward with enthusiasm to taking up the invitation to organize a
conference to explore the scope and application of these models."

in html




or in pdf



118 NATURE|VOL 424 | 10 JULY 2003 |www.nature.com/nature

***

Drive for patent-free innovation gathers pace

Kamil Idris is being asked to assess the merits of an open approach to
intellectual property.

Declan Butler
Paris

A group of top scientists and economists are asking the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva to promote open
models of innovation that don't rely on patents.

The group believes that innovation based on freely available knowledge
can be effective not just in areas where it has established a foothold
-- such as genome sequence data -- but also in sectors where patent
protection is entirely dominant, such as drug development (see Nature
424, 10-11; 2003).

In a 7 July letter to Kamil Idris, director general of the WIPO, 59
scientists and economists call attention to the "explosion of open and
collaborative projects to create public goods" in recent years,
including the Human Genome Project, the open-source software movement,
and Internet standards. Such projects show that "one can achieve a high
level of innovation in some areas of the modern economy without
intellectual property protection," says the letter, arguing that
"excessive, unbalanced or poorly designed intellectual property
protections may be counterproductive." It calls on the WIPO to hold a
major conference on these models during 2004.

The signatories include Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University in New
York, who received the 2001 Nobel prize for economics; John Sulston of
the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge, UK, winner of the
2002 Nobel prize for medicine; James Orbinski, former president of
Medecins Sans Frontieres; and Richard Stallman, a computer scientist
regarded by many as the "father" of the open-source software movement.

Francis Gurry, an assistant director-general at the WIPO, said that the
organization welcomed the idea.  "The use of open and collaborative
development models for research and innovation is a very important and
interesting development," he said in a statement.  "The director-general
looks forward with enthusiasm to taking up the invitation to organize a
conference to explore the scope and application of these models."

Advocates of open-source innovation want the WIPO and other public
agencies to rethink how innovation works, says James Love, director of
the Washington-based Consumer Project on Technology and a signatory to
the letter.  Open research for drug development is one of the
initiativeís main targets, he says.  Some of the authors are also
pursuing the idea of an international treaty to encourage governments to
fund drug research and put the results directly into the public domain.

Love argues that research results should ultimately become a freely
available commodity, with drug companies competing to market generics of
any drugs developed.  The current system, in which drug research and
development is carried out by drug companies that keep patent rights for
up to 20 years, is grossly inefficient and results in excessive prices
so that those who need the drugs most cannot afford them, argues Love.

Yet to be fleshed out are details of how such a model would work, and
how competitive forces could be maintained within it. But in May, the
general assembly of the World Health Organization instructed agency
officials to draft terms of reference during 2004 for a new evaluation
of intellectual property, innovation and public health.  Consideration
of open-science models is expected to be part of this exercise.

"The success of the Internet and of open-source software has driven home
just how far open and collaborative projects can go," says Hal Varian,
an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who has also
signed the 7 July letter.

Another signatory, Paul David, an economist at Stanford University,
argues that systems such

[GKD] BytesForAll--South Asian IT for Dev. Newsletter

[Frederick Noronha (FN)]

  B y t e s   F o r   A l l ---  http://www.bytesforall.org
  Making  Computing  Relevant to the  People of  South Asia
  AUG 2003 * http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers

--
ICTs and handicrafts
--

In the Third World, artisans marketed their wares primarily through
middlemen, who charge artificially low prices before marking up prices
and shipping them to up-scale boutiques overseas. But with the Internet
and other information and communication technologies (ICT), artisans
have a competitive alternative.
http://www.digitaldividend.org/pubs/pubs_06_overview_handicrafts.htm

--
Traditional knowledge
--

Traditional knowledge holders often stand outside the fold of
intellectual property rights and are negatively affected by them. A new
handbook makes intellectual property issues and protection options more
understandable and readily available for traditional knowledge holders,
human rights NGOs, and legal professionals. In addition to introducing
intellectual property concepts, this handbook contains a series of
exercises to help the user to identify and classify types of knowledge,
cultural aspects, and community goals related to specific knowledge
claims. Through a series of exercises, it is possible for traditional
knowledge holders to identify whether or not specific intellectual
property protection options are relevant or appropriate for their
knowledge. An electronic version of the handbook in PDF format is now
available for download at: http://shr.aaas.org/tek/handbook/ More
details from Stephen A Hansen, Project Director, Science & Intellectual
Property in the Public Interest (SIPPI), American Association for the
Advancement of Science 1200 New York Ave., NW Washington, DC 20005 USA
Tel: (202) 326-6796 Fax: (202) 289-4950 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW:
http://shr.aaas.org WWW: http://sippi.aaas.org

--
Info bank
--

The Nayudamma Information Bank contains information about and easy
access to technologies supported by IDRC - technologies from the South
for the South. Providing contact names for all the technologies
described, it is a way of sharing and updating information on
technological advancements for international development. The
information bank has been named in honour of the late Dr. Yelavarthy
Nayudamma, a Sri Lankan who dedicated his life to demonstrating how
science and technology can and should be used for human benefit.
http://indev.nic.in/indev/profNewsItem.asp?id=649

--
Passing through
--

Prof Ken Keniston <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, that thorough researcher of
ICT-for-development themes in India, was back scouring the country
recently. Said he: "(M)y stay in India was productive and informative,
not to mention enjoyableAs a result of the trip, and encouraged by
Indian friends, I hope that an India-based project analyzing with some
precision both the impact and the costs of the so-called 'ICT for the
masses' projects could be undertaken over the course of the next two
years." That could make for an interesting read. While we need not get
pessimistic, it's long overdue that the hype be separated from the real
projects with potential. See his site at www.kken.net

---
FLOSS and development
---

Free/Libre and Open Source Software practitioners from Asia, Africa,
Europe and Latin America recently got together to produce a manifesto on
the role of Open Source Software (OSS) in the development cooperation
context. They asked all stake-holders to pay more attention to OSS, and
argued it should be employed wherever possible.
http://sarai.waag.org/display.php?id=28

--
Rural jobs
--

Like anything related to rural sector, placement services for rural
sector employees and employers are still very little organized, much
less than in all other sectors. Millions of unemployed people grope in
the dark, not knowing where to look for a job and this, despite the fact
that innumerable vacancies remain unfilled, the employers also not
knowing where to find the right people for them.

So what's the way out?

www.ruralnaukri.com sees the root cause of the problem as the absence of
any organized meeting ground for employers and employees, accordin

[GKD] Telecentre Web Seminar Archives Now Available

[David Wortley]

Dear GKD Members,

The PTC virtual conference webinar on Telecentres attracted over 20
participants from all across the globe, but for those who were unable to
attend the live event, I have now posted the archived presentations in
the virtual classroom.

To view these archives, please logon at
 and click on the "Review"
button on the top menu bar in the virtual classroom. This will also
enable you to print out the 4 presentations.

AGENDA

The topic of this session was "Telecentres and their role in social and
economic development". The presenters for the webinar covered a
diversity of Telecentre situations and applications with an agenda as
follows :

David Wortley (UK)
Telecentres and the UK Community Access to Lifelong Learning Strategy

Kenji Saga (Japan)
Key Issues for the Successful Implementation of Rural Telecenters

Naswil Idris (Indonesia) 
Community Telecentres in Indonesia

Brian Beaton (Canada)   
Telecentres and Community Development in the First Nations K-Net Project


For Apple Mac users and those with incompatible browsers preventing
access to the virtual classroom, I also plan to archive the Powerpoint
presentations on the HCLN website for access at
 
The next PTC virtual conference will be in August and we welcome your
ideas for topics relating to ICT and development.

Please also check out PTC's next annual conference in 2004 by visiting


Regards

David Wortley
Mass Mitec Creative Collaborative Communications
Office Tel: +44(0)1858 410366
Mobile Tel: +44(0)7831 118943
EMail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]




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