IPR vs Internet: How do you control ideas/knowledge on the web?
The advent of Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) has created a new debate and challenges in the global intellectual property rights (IPR) regime. Probably more headaches too! How, for example, do you legally manage ideas, inventions or innovations in such a complex (to control) environment?
Francis Gurry, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), visiting Sri Lanka on official business, flagged these issues during a keynote address at the annual Lakshman Kadirgamar memorial oration on Wednesday at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute.
Ravinatha Aryasinha, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador at the UN, Geneva; Francis Gurry, WIPO Director General and Senior Minister Tissa Vitarana at the media briefing. Pic by Mangala Weerasekera.
The following day, at a media briefing with Sri Lankan journalists, he provided some possible solutions.
“Our major task is creating a seamless, legal, global digital marketplace. We need to create legal structures where obtaining content legally is as easy (quick, smooth and effortless) as getting content illegally,” he said.
His message was that rather than ‘police’ the Internet and WWW with strictures that won’t work due to the unlimited flow of information and ideas, it is important to ensure that digital content is easy to get legally without bureaucratic or other blocks.
Dr. Gurry, a colleague of the late, former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, said Sri Lanka’s long relationship with WIPO started since the time the late Sri Lankan intellectual was working for WIPO many decades back.
During his current visit, he said WIPO and Sri Lanka are working out a 10-point plan towards broadening and strengthening the IPR protocol in the country.
“We need to make it easier to protect Sri Lankan brands like (for example) cinnamon, sapphires and tea. WIPO will help with capacity building and strengthening judicial knowledge (of IPR),” he said.
Responding to questions, Dr. Gurry said that he was impressed by Sri Lanka’s thirst to be a knowledge hub but noted that in a highly competitive world and a global marketplace, proper IPR safeguards need to be in place.
It was also noted that innovation and knowledge is not only about high tech (industry or enterprises); it also extends to other areas like for example shoes or furniture where knowledge and innovation enhances the product and adds value. Associated with the same briefing, Senior Minister Tissa Vitarana, assigned the subject of science and technology and the architect of the advent of nano-technology to Sri Lanka, said that systems to safeguard IPR in Sri Lanka were already underway.
Please see related articles