WIPO Regional Forum on Tuesday

World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Regional Forum on Intellectual Property and Environmentally Sound Technologies will take place on May 29-31 in Sri Lanka.
Besides the WIPO Regional Forum, another event, the (SAARC) Roundtable on Sub-Regional Cooperation on Use of Intellectual Property for Development and Acquisition of Environmentally Sound Technologies, will also be held on the occasion.
The meeting has been arranged to bring policy makers and experts in one platform to deliberate on ways and means to protect and promote environment friendly resources of energy in the region.
The World Intellectual Property Organisation in cooperation with National Intellectual Property Office Sri Lanka (NIPOS) and Japan Patent Office (JPO) has organised the event.
Delegates from Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, Iran, Indonesia, Maldives, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Japan and Vietnam will participate in the three-day event, where they will also discuss environmental degradation and effects of climate change.
Participants will interact on how intellectual property system contributes to sustainable development through transfer of environmentally sound technologies. The forum will provide an opportunity to discuss possible international cooperation to enhance sub regional cooperation in the field of intellectual property to develop and acquire environmentally sound technologies.
Earlier, the forum had held four meetings; in Colombo (1998), in Kathmandu (1999), in Dhaka (2001) and in Thimpu (2002), apartfrom an expert workshop in New Delhi (2003).
The third SAARC-WIPO Forum held in 2001 had outlined the strategy on Traditional Knowledge protection with particular emphasis on collective ownership of Traditional Knowledge, documentation of Traditional Knowledge, establishing systems for access and benefit sharing in relation to GRs, creation of a community knowledge fund for these purposes, and human resource development. The forum had also proposed model legislation on Traditional Knowledge, mechanisms, contractual terms and practices, regulating access to and benefits sharing in GRs, protection and conservation - a model relevant for international protection of Traditional Knowledge.
The fourth meeting of the Forum reiterated the decisions of the Third one with the addition of preparing an inventory on Traditional Knowledge, particularly on known medicinal plants/their knowledge. The forum had also discussed on draft SAARC Legal Framework that stressed on benefit sharing, enforcement and duration of protection.