WIPO Director General Applauds Lebanon’s IP Efforts

At a meeting on October 12, 2009 in Beirut, WIPO Director General Francis Gurry and President Michel Suleiman of Lebanon discussed the pivotal role of balanced national intellectual property (IP) regimes in promoting development, as well as WIPO’s capacity building activities in Lebanon.

Mr. Gurry, who is on an official visit to Lebanon, congratulated the Lebanese Government on the considerable efforts made to ensure the effective use of the IP system for economic and cultural development.

Mr. Gurry also held talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Saniora, Minister of Foreign Affairs Fawzi Sallukh, Minister of Culture Tammam Salam, and Minister of Economy and Trade Mohamed Safadi.

Talks focused on how Lebanon can best exploit the IP system for its economic and cultural development, as well as ways in which WIPO can support national efforts to strengthen the country’s IP capacity. The Director General emphasized the importance of IP as a driver of economic development and pointed to the enormous potential of the country’s vibrant creative industries, particularly in relation to the publishing, music, audiovisual and broadcasting sectors.

Mr. Gurry assured the Lebanese authorities of WIPO’s commitment to developing an effective copyright global infrastructure that ensures appropriate remuneration of creators and that supports foreign investment. He also offered the Organization’s assistance in modernizing Lebanon’s industrial property office.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Gurry opened the Arab Regional Intellectual Property Conference, co-organized by WIPO and the League of Arab States. This event brings together heads of intellectual property offices of Arab countries to identify best practices and discuss issues of common concern. Lebanon’s Minister of Economy and Trade, Minister of Culture, and Ambassador Saad Al-Farargi, Permanent Representative of the League of Arab States in Geneva, also addressed the opening session.

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WIPO Assemblies Provide Direction for Next Biennium

WIPO member states, at their annual Assemblies from September 22 to October 1, 2009, signaled strong support for the Organization’s strategic realignment with the endorsement of a program and budget for the 2010/11 biennium that boosts WIPO’s development-related activities, emphasizes the need to advance the Organization’s normative work, and further upgrades its services to the private sector. The member states also agreed to renew the mandate of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property, Traditional Knowledge, Folklore and Genetic Resources (IGC).

After intense yet constructive discussions held over several days, member states adopted a clearly defined work plan and terms of reference to guide the IGC’s work over the next two years. States agreed that the IGC would undertake negotiations with the objective of reaching agreement on a text of an international legal instrument (or instruments), which would ensure the effective protection of genetic resources (GRs), traditional knowledge (TK) and traditional cultural expressions (TCEs). The decision also provided for three inter-sessional meetings of working groups to take place in 2010/11, in addition to the four regular sessions of the IGC.

Work over the next two years will build on the previous work of the IGC. The basis for text-based negotiations will be the existing WIPO working documents on GRs, TK, and TCEs. The IGC is to submit to the 2011 General Assembly the text (or texts) of an international legal instrument(s) which would ensure the effective protection of GRs, TK and TCEs. The 2011 session of the General Assembly would then decide on convening a Diplomatic Conference. WIPO Director General Francis Gurry said this “significant” decision gave the IGC “a robust and clear mandate over the next two years.” He called this “a real step forward” for the Organization.

Member states approved a budgetary allocation for 2010/11 amounting to 618 million Swiss francs (CHF), which represents a 1.6% (CHF 9.8 million) decrease compared to the current financial period, reflecting the impact of the global economic crisis on WIPO’s services. Almost one-fifth (some 118 million CHF) of the Organization’s budget is allocated across programs for capacity-building and development-related activities to strengthen the participation of developing and least developed countries in the benefits of the knowledge economy. An additional 4.5 million CHF was specifically allocated for the implementation of Development Agenda projects.

Delegations expressed strong support for the project-based approach proposed by the Committee and Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP), which will accelerate efficient implementation of the Development Agenda. Member states reaffirmed their commitment to the Development Agenda which they identified as a key priority for the Organization, and stressed the importance of ensuring that adequate human and financial resources are allocated to its implementation. The General Assembly also urged the CDIP to develop a coordination mechanism for monitoring, assessing and reporting on the implementation of recommendations. The CDIP is to submit a report on this matter to the General Assembly at its 2010 session.

Member states took note of the status of work relating to the three issues currently under discussion within the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), namely, the rights of broadcasting organizations, the rights of performers in their audiovisual performances and exceptions and limitations. Delegations expressed support for continued work in these areas with a view to concrete progress.

The General Assembly noted a report on the work of the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP), including the Committee’s decision to commission five studies on exclusions, exceptions and limitations, including a public policy, socio-economic and developmental perspective; on technical solutions to improve greater access to, and dissemination of, patent information; on the client-attorney privilege; and on transfer of technology and on opposition systems.

The Assembly of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) appointed the Egyptian Patent Office and the Israel Patent Office as International Searching and Preliminary Examining Authorities under the PCT, bringing the total number of such offices to 17. The appointments will become effective from future dates to be notified by the respective offices when they are ready to begin operation. Member states also adopted a number of amendments to the regulations under the PCT which will enter into force on July 1, 2010. These concern clarification of the extent to which authorities may define the scope of supplementary international search which will be offered, a requirement for applicants filing amendments to indicate the basis of those amendments in the application as filed, and improvements to the process for establishing equivalent amounts of certain PCT fees in different currencies. The Assembly also noted a report of the second session of the PCT Working Group, held in May 2009, and approved the convening of a further session of the Working Group in 2010.

The Madrid Union Assembly took note of the study prepared by WIPO on the possible introduction of additional filing languages (Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Portuguese) in the Madrid system in a way that would be operationally and economically viable. The introduction of additional filing languages would be subject to specific agreements with the offices of interested contracting parties. As a first step, the Assembly approved the implementation of a pilot project involving the participation of interested offices.

Member countries of the Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration amended a number of rules governing that system to improve accessibility of information regarding the fate of international registrations in the countries of the Lisbon system. This will better enable interested parties to determine the status of protection of an internationally registered appellation of origin in a given member country, by establishing a formal framework for the communication of a “statement of grant of protection.”

The Assemblies also approved the construction of a new conference hall with a capacity of 900 seats as well as several new smaller meeting rooms in the main headquarters building to cater for increasing demand for multilateral and bilateral consultations associated with intergovernmental meetings at WIPO. Member states earmarked 64 million CHF for this project to be covered from WIPO reserves (24 million CHF) and the extension of an existing commercial loan (40 million CHF). The new hall, designed by Behnisch Architekten of Stuttgart, Germany, gives priority to sustainability: local wood, natural light, hybrid ventilation combining natural and mechanical means, and a cooling system drawing water from Lake Léman. These are among the most significant environmentally-friendly features of the new hall.

The full report of the Assemblies will be available at: http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=17454.

For further information, please contact the Media Relations Section at WIPO:

• Tel: (+41 22) – 338 81 61 or 338 95 47

• Fax: (+41 22) – 338 82 80

• Email: publicinf@wipo.int
• Site:  www.mpavlos.biz

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Cloud backup

Cloud backup, also known as online backup, is a strategy for backing up data that involves sending a copy of the data over a proprietary or public network to an off-site server. The server is usually hosted by a third-party service provider, who charges the backup customer a fee based on capacity, bandwidth or number of users. In the enterprise, the off-site server might be proprietary, but the chargeback method would be similar.

Online backup systems are typically built around a client software application that runs on a schedule determined by the level of service the customer has purchased. If the customer has contracted for daily backups, for instance, then the application collects, compresses, encrypts and transfers data to the service provider’s servers every 24 hours. To reduce the amount of bandwidth consumed and the time it takes to transfer files, the service provider might only provide incremental backups after the initial full backup.

Third-party cloud backup has gained popularity with small offices and home users because of its convenience. Capital expenditures for additional hardware are not required and backups can be run dark, which means they can be run automatically without manual intervention.

In the enterprise, cloud backup services are primarily being used for archiving non-critical data only. Traditional backup is a better solution for critical data that requires a short recovery time objective (RTO) because there are physical limits for how much data can be moved in a given amount of time over a network. When a large amount of data needs to be recovered, it may need to be shipped on tape or some other portable storage media. (See: AWS import-export)

Russ Fellows, Senior Analyst with the Evaluator Group, has put together the following chart to illustrate when cloud backups should be considered as a viable option.

Backup factor	Cloud storage	Traditional backup
Amount of data	Best when the total amount to protect is less than 100 GB per 1 Mb of network bandwidth. For example, 100 GB can be supported by a 1 Mb WAN connection (such as DSL)	For large amounts of data, or for environments with limited network connectivity, traditional backup techniques are more appropriate.
Rate of change	Best when the rate of change is less than 10% of the total data per month.	For data that changes frequently, traditional backup methods that use local disk and tape, with tape transport off-site are more appropriate

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Victory at WIPO!

Victory at WIPO!

Thanks to your efforts, on June 22, 2007, the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) decided to put the Broadcasting Treaty on hold indefinitely! This is very welcome news indeed.

Thanks to everyone who signed the Dear WIPO petition, which EFF delivered to WIPO officials in Geneva prior to the decision. At the time of delivery the petition had over 1,500 signatories. Copies of the petition were snapped up as fast as we could print them, and it was apparent that WIPO diplomats were paying attention. EFF was honored to help make sure that the voices of podcasters and citizen broadcasters from around the world got an equal hearing at WIPO alongside those of the major commercial broadcasters.

We won this battle with your help, and we’ll be updating this site when and if new battles emerge. In the meantime, for those interested, we have more details of the Geneva discussions on EFF’s DeepLinks blog.

Thank you for your commitment to making a difference!

The Electronic Frontier Foundation

dearwipo@eff.org

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