WIPO Hosts Third Patent Colloquium

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

16 February 2007

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is today hosting the third in a series of colloquia on patents scheduled to take place between October 2006 and September 2007 at its headquarters in Geneva.

Today's event is entitled “Flexibilities in the Patent System”.

Explaining the reasoning behind the colloquium, the Organization stated that:

"The main function of the patent system is to promote innovation and encourage economic development. That said, in recent years, and more so since the adoption of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), the potential economic and social effects of the patent system have increasingly been discussed."

"Questions such as whether the international patent system is flexible enough to adequately address the situation of developing nations and their national public policy needs, or how both nations and individuals can use the flexibilities in the patent system and simultaneously develop national intellectual property assets, are raised."

The two invited speakers – Professor Joseph Straus, Director, Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law and Professor, and Dr N. S. Gopalakrishnan, HRD Chair on IPR, School of Legal Studies, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kerala, India - will address various issues related to the flexibilities embodied in the national and international patent systems from different angles and respond to questions from the audience.

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