Reforming WIPO

There is a movement afoot, initially pushed by Brazil and Argentina, to change the mission of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). An information page is available. There is also the text of a declaration (PDF) which will be debated in Geneva on September 30. "As an intergovernmental organization, however, WIPO embraced a culture of creating and expanding monopoly privileges, often without regard to consequences. The continuous expansion of these privileges and their enforcement mechanisms has led to grave social and economic costs, and has hampered and threatened other important systems of creativity and innovation.... We do not ask that WIPO abandon efforts to promote the appropriate protection of intellectual property, or abandon all efforts to harmonize or improve these laws. But we insist that WIPO work from the broader framework described in the 1974 agreement with the UN, and to take a more balanced and realistic view of the social benefits and costs of intellectual property rights as a tool, but not the only tool, for supporting creativity [and] intellectual activity."

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