Posts Tagged: "un"

WIPO is an agency of the United Nations, so I suppose a Gurry reappointment was to be expected. After all, the UN is poised to declare that the Catholic Church’s pro-life teachings are tantamount to torture, the UN has done absolutely nothing substantive to assist in the recovery of 300 teenage girls kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in Nigeria, the UN has historically always had extraordinary abusers of human rights on the Human Rights Council, such as Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and China, to name but a few, and despite the fact that the UN knows that Russia rigged the annexation vote in Crimea, the organization is unwilling or simply incapable of stopping Vladamir Putin. All the while the UN never seems to miss an opportunity to demonstrate its anti-semitic nature.

Earlier today, WIPO issued a press release, allegedly as the result of “recent media attention and requests for information” relating to what WIPO is and does, and exactly what happened regarding the computer deals that seem to quite clearly violate UN sanctions. Despite the belief of WIPO that the computer deals did not violate UN sanctions, the agency has implemented safe guards relative to their technical assistance program. There will be better coordination between UN organizations and committees to review deals that could potentially tread on UN sanctions.

WIPO is under fire again. It seems that WIPO not only shipped computers to North Korea, but also shipped computers to Iran as well. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) called this latest WIPO transgression “an outrage.” At a hearing where Deputy USPTO Director Teresa Rea was a witness, Lofgren went on: “Really, it’s an outrage that WIPO would be transferring material, violating the sanctions that we have to North Korea and Iran… I mean it’s basically, it’s funded by U.S. inventors.”

Australia and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) today signed an agreement detailing how an AUD$2 million Australian contribution would assist least-developed and developing countries improve their intellectual property systems.

As far as I can tell none of these goals is forwarded by the sale of computers to North Korea. Sure, North Korea is the exact type of country that WIPO has historically sought to help. Not because they are a rogue nation, aspire to have a clandestine nuclear program or because they support terrorism, but rather because the people of North Korea suffer so much and there is so little economic activity that it is misleading to even call what they have an economy. Such horribly mismanaged countries is where WIPO has done its best work, to encourage the adoption and respect of IP rights, which leads to international investment and economic development.

The debate regarding global warming and whether it is man-made, a natural phenomenon or something in between is heating up dramatically in advance of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which begins December 7, 2009 and will run through December 18, 2009. You would have to practically be living under a rock not to know that prominent global…

Last week on Monday, November 23, 2009, while so many of us were winding down, clearing off our desks and getting ready for the Thanksgiving Holiday, the United States Patent and Trademark Office announced that the Government of India has granted the agency’s patent examiners access to a new digital database containing a compilation of traditional Indian knowledge. This was…

As first reported by Bartholomew Sullivan of The Commercial Appeal, last week, on October 22, 2009, thirty-four members of Congress wrote a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her to steadfastly support strong intellectual property rights and not to given in to international demands that would weaken intellectual property rights, particularly patent rights. The concern expressed by these…