Talk:World Intellectual Property Organization

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Removed the quote by Mr. Cory Doctorow. I admire him but his quote biases the article, besides, it should be on wikiquote. --metta, The Sunborn ☥ 18:10, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Critique

The final sentence of this paragraph ("This has resulted in a draft Access to Knowledge [5], or A2K, Treaty") seems to be misleading. If I've properly understood the CPTech pages in the link, this "draft Treaty" has been worked on by a number of NGOs in parallel with what is happening in WIPO.

As far as I can see, there has been no development of such a treaty in WIPO itself, nor introduction of the indicated draft as a specific proposal for action there. There are quite a few references in the reports of the Inter-sessional Intergovernmental Meeting on a Development Agenda for WIPO to States indicating that a treaty dealing with Access to Knowledge would be desirable, but it's not clear that those States (rather than observer NGOs who appear to have been involved in the drafting) necessarily agree with the particular ideas in that document except to the extent that they have indicated the need for work in certain areas. If the draft Treaty has actually been discussed in WIPO, a better reference would be useful (and if not, my guess at its actual nature may still need correcting). Tim B 11:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Objectives of WIPO

In direct contradiction to the intro paragraph, Richard Stallman writes:

WIPO is formally a UN organization, but in fact it represents the interests of the holders of copyrights, patents and trademarks.
WIPO has as its core objectives the promotion of creative intellectual activity and the facilitation of the transfer of technology related to intellectual property to the developing countries in order to accelerate economic, social and cultural development

Since there is a dispute between a well-known international organization (the UN), and the world's foremost promoter of intellectual freedom (RMS), it behooves us to:

  1. recognize that this is a matter of dispute
  2. stop taking the UN statement at face value
  3. describe the dispute - fairly and accuratel.

What's the best way to do this? Say that WIPO says that their objective is X while Stallman says what they really do is Y? Uncle Ed 19:58, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] intro paragraph

Cut from intro:

, and has as its core objectives the promotion of creative intellectual activity and the facilitation of the transfer of technology related to intellectual property to the developing countries in order to accelerate economic, social and cultural development (art. 1 of the 1974 Agreement between the UN and the WIPO)

History paragraph says:

Under Article 3 of this Convention, WIPO seeks to "promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world."

Stallman seems to think that WIPO is more keen on preserving the power and rights of those holding patents and copyrights, than on promoting creativity or transferring technology. He argues elsewhere that, e.g., medical patents make it hard for poor countries to get ahold of medical technology (such as new drug discoveries). This would seem to be directly opposed to any objective of promoting technology transfer.

Am I missing something, or is there really a dispute here? Uncle Ed 20:04, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

I (re-)inserted in the intro an explanation about why the Organisation was created by the Contracting Parties to the "Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization". That is factual, and hopefully better. You might wish to insert a statement (in the critique section or in the intro) about Stallman's opinion, preferably with proper source cited. cheers. --Edcolins 07:39, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV issue

I removed this statement form the "critique" section:

In recent years, WIPO has sought to aggressively promote the interests of intellectual property owners.

This is hardly NPOV. Source citation needed. The remaining sentence starting with "Much of the important work is done through committees, (...)" should be introduced by something to make it consistent now. Or removed as well. Any idea? --Edcolins 07:07, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Please Imporve This Article

This article is terrible. Considering the importance of intellectual property in the US and around the world, it is pretty sad that the article on the WIPO is slightly more than 400 words. Several things desperately need to be added:

-More detail to the history of the WIPO

-Some dialogue concerning the effect the WIPO has on member countries of the WTO (specifically the use of patented drugs in the southern hemisphere)

-Links the legislation the WIPO has endorsed

-Enforcement mechanisms —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.111.195.147 (talk • contribs)

[edit] East Timor

None of the changes in the recent stream indicated the reasons for change or revery. Both "East Timor" and "Timor-Leste" are correct, but the latter is the version in formal usage by the UN, which seems the appropriate decider in the context. On the other hand, East Timor is the page name, so a link directly to that will avoid redirects. Hope that's OK for everyone. Tim B 17:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, please stop the edit war and find a consensus on the talk page. Also read Three-revert rule if you don't want to be blocked. For this one, this one and this one, 3bulletproof16, you could already be blocked! --Edcolins 20:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It isn't an edit war. We are involved in a problem with a sockpuppeteer. We are only reverting the edits of the indef blocked socks. Contact admins Deskana and Yamla for more information. Also see Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/TJ Spike‎ and Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/IP check. -- bulletproof 3:16 20:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Alright, thanks for the info... --Edcolins 20:46, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
That would be fair enough, but (1) a note in the edit summary would be useful and (2) whatever the rights and wrongs of the alleged sock puppeteer elsewhere, the edit had a point of sorts in this context. As I pointed out above, the name which they were constantly putting in is actually more correct in the context, since the article is specifically talking of UN Member States rather than names in most commonly recognized forms. Also reverting without explanation a compromise suggestion from a user who has made a number of edits to this article over a period of over a year and points to reasoned explanation on the talk page is poor manners at best. Tim B 21:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The page was reverted to the last version made by User:TJ Spyke, which was the last edit made to the page before the sockpuppet reverted. Wikipedia policy states that the use of sockpuppets to disrupt Wikipedia is vandalism, therefore the initials "RVV" (Revert Vandalism) where used in the edit summary to revert the sockpuppet's actions. If there are any changes that you made before TJ Spyke's edit to the page that are now gone, then that is something that you need to discuss with him since the page was only reverted back to his version because of the sockpuppets actions. Just following policy. -- bulletproof 3:16 21:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

What about this edit then here, after the sockpuppet disruption, and before your last edit? --Edcolins 21:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Check it again [1]. It was reverted to the last version by TJ Spyke. I wasn't looking at the history page at the time of the revert. I was looking the sock's contrib page while reverting. I didn't do it because I disagreed with Tims edit, I just didn't even see. I reverted it because I noticed that the sock cotinued to revert and didn't even see Tims edit. -- bulletproof 3:16 22:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Alright, thanks. I have reverted your last rvv to the last version by Tim, who had already considered the issue indeed, even if you had not seen it. --Edcolins 22:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Washington Post citation

I suggest to remove the citation of the Washington Post introduced by Skilful on 31 December 2007.

Skilful misrepresents the point that the author of the article (Lawrence Lessig) is making: Skilful uses Lois Boland's statement as evidence that WIPO is working against the interest of citizens. Their argument is that because a USPTO director of international relations said it, it must be true; an argument by authority therefore.

However, the point that Lawrence Lessig wants to make in his article is that Boland's statement is "flat wrong". He refers to Boland as "one hapless government official revealed-through her apparent ignorance".

Therefore, we cannot use Boland's statement as evidence here.

Deivo (talk) 11:13, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion. I have removed most of the material in that paragraph. The section "Critique" seriously lacks attribution and needs improvement. Thanks again. --Edcolins (talk) 18:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)