DEVELOPMENT: Project Links South to Intellectual Property Issues

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Akhilesh Upadhyay

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 19 2002 (IPS) - An Indian composer made headlines worldwide last month when he filed a lawsuit in a Los Angeles court against the producer of the hit single ‘Addictive’ by the group Truth Hurts.

Bappi Lahiri claimed that hip-hop impresario Dr. Dre had simply superimposed a drum track and lyrics over his soundtrack without giving him proper credit. It was a case of ”cultural imperialism” against an artist from the developing world, argued Lahiri..

The legal battle was the second high-profile case in as many years to pit Indians against a U.S. company for alleged theft of intellectual property (IP).

In a much publicised battle last year, the United States Patent Office rejected most of the arguments of a Texas company attempting to patent a variety of Basmati rice that has grown on the Indian subcontinent for centuries.

But these incidents are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to awareness of IP in southern countries.

While India has been on the cutting edge of the information technology (IT) revolution in the past decade, with a free flow of information from beyond its national borders contributing significantly to awareness of intellectual property, experts say the knowledge gap between the developed and developing countries on these issues is still huge.

One project aims to change that by first establishing Internet links in these countries.

”In countries like Chad, we were the first to provide Internet connectivity (last June),” says Colin Buffam of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a specialised U.N. agency that works to provide developing countries with a level playing field on intellectual property claims.

Buffam, who has travelled widely the past two years, believes that Internet links will provide developing countries a much-needed knowledge base from outside their own region, and also an opportunity to pool their own resources for mutual benefit.

Last week, WIPO experts presented a case study on a project that aims to bridge the digital divide and provide information about IP issues.

Started last year, WIPONet has linked such countries as Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Chad, Honduras and Lebanon to the Internet. Results are encouraging: about 51 per cent of new adherents to WIPO treaties on intellectual property are from developing countries, and 44 percent from transition economies.

”The intellectual property debate has increased with the Net,” says Buffam. ”While there is still a significant gap between North and South, the countries in the South can draw a lot from each other’s experiences.”

Via private networks, the public Internet, and state-of-the-art technologies, individual member states connect with the global IP network, gain access to IP experts and to information on other member states.

Experts say this will make it much easier for these states to register for patents, trademarks and designs.

When completed at the end of this year, WIPONet will connect 332 intellectual property offices in 171 countries. The network will also help WIPO respond more effectively to user demands of its international patent registration system.

”It must be seen as a step forward,” says Bob Jalango, Kenya’s permanent representative to the United Nations, ”especially for countries like ours”.

Africa is clearly a laggard in linking to the Internet, even by the standards of developing countries, where the rate of connectivity growth is slowing because the bulk of potential users have already obtained connections.

As of mid-2002, the number of dialup Internet subscribers on the continent was close to 1.7 million, up 20 percent from last year, but growth remains confined to Egypt, South Africa, Morocco and Nigeria. Of the total subscribers, north and south Africa account for about 1.2 million while 49 sub-Saharan countries share the rest.

Of the 500 million global Internet users, 72 percent live in high-income OECD countries, according to the U.N. Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2002.

Last year, the United States and fellow members of the Group of Eight (G8) nations began to promote connectivity in developing countries through the Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT Force). But activists say the rich countries have paid less attention to the issue since the United States launched its ‘war on terror’ following the attacks on Washington and the Pentagon on Sep. 11, 2001.

Activists and diplomats here say the United Nations and world community should aggressively push a digital agenda to bridge the divide, particularly in Africa, Latin American and parts of Asia, or else the poor countries will miss a second major industrial revolution.

DEVELOPMENT: Project Links South to Intellectual Property Issues

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Akhilesh Upadhyay

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 19 2002 (IPS) - An Indian composer made headlines worldwide last month when he filed a lawsuit in a Los Angeles court against the producer of the hit single ‘Addictive’ by the group Truth Hurts.
(more…)