The third day of the Provisional Committee on a Development Agenda (PCDA) for WIPO started with the Brazilian delegation further taking apart the US proposal. Most of the morning session then went to the further discussion of the proposal, during which some interesting statements were made.

Argentina pointed out that violation of limited industrial monopolies is not just "endemic" in developing countries, and quoted an article from Le Figaro of 22 February 2006 about counterfeit products, or "product piracy" in New York.

Nigeria rightly pointed out on behalf of the African group that the US proposal is very internet heavy, which might be of limited use to African countries, which often do not even have electricity, much less internet.

Things then got a little heated when Romania and Brazil got into a slight row about who said what about whom regarding some statements of Romania in which they referred to Brazil.

These were when the NGO statements could finally take place, and I gave the following statement on behalf of the FSFE, which will also be permanently online at http://fsfeurope.org/projects/wipo/statement-20060223.en.html

                               STATEMENT BY THE
                    FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION EUROPE (FSFE)
                             FIRST SESSION OF THE
                      PROVISIONAL COMMITTEE ON PROPOSALS
                     RELATED TO A WIPO DEVELOPMENT AGENDA
                         (Geneva, 20-24 February 2006)

Mr Chairman,

I speak in my capacity as president of the Free Software Foundation
Europe, a European non-governmental organisation dedicated to all
aspects of Free Software, as defined by the four fundamental freedoms
specified in the Free Software Definition. We operate in a network of
sister organisations in Latin America, India, Europe and the United
States, and work in close cooperation with the global Free Software
community.

Mr Chairman,

let me first congratulate you on your chairing this session, we are
hopeful that you will help this PCDA process to come to a concrete and
conclusive outcome for the next general assembly. We would also like
to congratulate all member states on their excellent proposals, even
if our comments are in particular on the proposal of the United
States.

A typical cycle of sustainable activity is characterised by three
major columns: planning, action, and analysis. Ideally, action follows
on planning, analysis follows on action, the results of the analysis
provide the grounds for further planning. In the WIPO context, we
could also describe these as norm-setting, implementation, and review.

Like all cycles, the WIPO cycle breaks at its weakest link. That is
why we cannot agree with the expressed US opinion that WIPO has no
need for analysis, and that studies only need to be done on a national
level: there is need for review on national levels, but review also
needs to be conducted at the level of norm-setting and implementation.

As a result of this -- in our view incomplete -- understanding of the
process, the US proposal focuses on very concrete, mainly
implementation oriented aspects. We believe this is not necessarily a
bad starting point for building consensus.

Many member states made statements about WIPO activities greatly
benefitting from a more participatory approach. Language ranged from
including "views of all stakeholders, with special emphasis by public
interest groups" to the United States proposal, which asks that WIPO

     "[...] should aggressively seek out potential partners in other
            intergovernmental organizations development agencies, as well
            as international and regional development banks, NGOs, the
            private sector, academia, charitable organizations, and other
            institutions [...]"


This is an excellent and possibly consensual notion, which we could
build on quickly and in a concrete way. As also discussed during the
United Nations World Summit on the Information Society, physical
participation in such events substantially depends upon infrastructure
and resources often not available to public interest groups in
particular.

The problems remain similar, so may be the solutions. Therefore please
allow me to briefly share some experiences from the WSIS.

Last week's deliberations on the Internet Governance Forum under
mandate from UN secretary-general Kofi Annan were the most advanced in
terms of incorporating the WSIS experience. All statements were
transcribed live and projected on a screen above the chair,
facilitating better understanding during the session and making it
easier for participants to do justice to all statements.

After the session, the transcripts were put online in a matter of
minutes, making all statements of the session immediately accessible
to all who were absent or had to leave the room while the meeting took
place.

Additionally, Free Software volunteers streamed the entire session
live in an open and accessible format that allowed all computer users
with sufficiently fast internet access to follow the session while it
took place, possibly getting in touch with those present in order to
have them incorporate their views and comments in the statements. The
recordings usually go online a few days later, making it easy for
people to follow the session after it took place.

More could be done, but these two concrete steps have already done
much to ensure that all stakeholders, including member states, have an
easier time following all the proceedings and help improve the
effectiveness of the overall process.

Mr Chairman,

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can be a wonderful
tool to facilitate universal access and wide participation beyond
cultural, geographical and financial barriers. In order for them to do
so, it is important to use them wisely and choose formats and
protocols that do not exclude any business model, stakeholder group or
operating system.

All WIPO online activities, including the "WIPO Partnership Database"
around which the US proposal is built, should be conducted through
open standards and accessible formats. Open standards in this context
mean publicly documented and freely accessible formats for which at
least two implementations exist, one of which should be Free Software
so others can take it for reference and study, as well as adapt it to
their needs of multilingualism and accessibility.

The format should be available on all three major families of desktop
operating systems used today. Additionally, it is necessary that no
such format actively mandates the use of proprietary software, so as
to not exclude people who wish to maintain control over their own
information infrastructure, an issue of increasing importance for many
member states.

Only the Open Document Format (ODF) fully fits this bill in the realm
of office applications, it should therefore be used for all future
activities. FSF Europe gladly offers its expertise to WIPO for more
in-depth elaboration of these issues in this and other areas.

Mr Chairman,

all proposals seemed to share common ground in wanting to make
concrete improvements in this area. It is on these grounds that we
hope to have provided the basis for a small step towards consensus of
all member states. Maybe such a small, but visible sign of finding
common ground will help us on our way to the next general assembly.

Thank you, Mr Chairman.

Statement by Mr. Georg C.F. Greve 
  Free Software Foundation Europe, President
  UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS),
    Civil Society Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks (PCT) Working Group,
    Co-Coordinator
    First phase Civil Society representative, German Governmental Delegation

Presentation of the Friends of Development proposal was then delayed somewhat by some procedural discussions about how the secretariat should proceed to somehow bring the proposals together, possibly clustering them by issue to form one proposal that could be discussed substantially.

As the meeting will soon break for lunch, not much more is likely to happen after the Argentine delegation is done presenting some of the outlines and background of the proposal and Development Agenda process.