WIPO to Host High Level Meeting on Strategic Use of IP for Development by LDCs

Geneva, July 17, 2009
MA/2009/49

The High Level Forum on the Strategic Use of Intellectual Property for Prosperity and Development will provide an opportunity for senior policy makers to exchange views and share individual country experiences with a view to identifying best practices and solutions to common challenges.  High ranking officials from most LDCs, including ministers from Bangladesh, Benin, Cambodia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Maldives, Mali, Nepal, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda, are expected to address the meeting.

The program will cover a range of topics, including:

• Integrating Intellectual Property into National Development Policy and Strategies of the LDCs;
• The Role of IP in Reducing Poverty, Fostering Development and Wealth Creation;
• The Strategic Importance of Transfer of Technology and Technological Capacity Building for the Development of LDCs;
• The Sharing of Experience with some LDCs on success stories of using IP for national wealth creation in areas such as Trademarks, Service Marks, Geographical Indications and Industrial Designs;
• The importance of Patent Documents for the Extraction of Technological Information for Technological Development: The Malaysian Experience;
• The contribution and role of copyright and related rights to national development;
• Overview of international development in the area of traditional knowledge, genetic resources and expressions of folklore in LDCs: and
• The role of regional IP organizations in the development of IP institutions in LDCs.

The High-Level Forum will also serve as a platform for launching a new public-private initiative that aims to provide industrial property offices, universities and research institutes in LDCs free-of-charge access to online scientific and technical journals. The Access to Research for Development and Innovation (aRDi) program is a joint venture involving WIPO and leading science and technology publishing companies.

The High Level Forum is being organized within the context of WIPO’s Least Developed Countries Program which works to enhance the IP capacity of these countries in support of national development objectives, poverty reduction and wealth creation. Through this and other programs WIPO is seeking to increase the participation of LDCs in the benefits of the knowledge economy.