Talk:World Intellectual Property Organization/Archives/2013

Morrow
Removed the quote by Mr. Cory Doctorow. I admire him but his quote biases the article, besides, it should be on wikiquote. -- 18:10, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Critique
The final sentence of this paragraph ("This has resulted in a draft Access to Knowledge [5], or A2K, Treaty") seems to be misleading. If I've properly understood the CPTech pages in the link, this "draft Treaty" has been worked on by a number of NGOs in parallel with what is happening in WIPO.

As far as I can see, there has been no development of such a treaty in WIPO itself, nor introduction of the indicated draft as a specific proposal for action there. There are quite a few references in the reports of the Inter-sessional Intergovernmental Meeting on a Development Agenda for WIPO to States indicating that a treaty dealing with Access to Knowledge would be desirable, but it's not clear that those States (rather than observer NGOs who appear to have been involved in the drafting) necessarily agree with the particular ideas in that document except to the extent that they have indicated the need for work in certain areas. If the draft Treaty has actually been discussed in WIPO, a better reference would be useful (and if not, my guess at its actual nature may still need correcting). Tim B 11:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Objectives of WIPO
In direct contradiction to the intro paragraph, Richard Stallman writes:


 * WIPO is formally a UN organization, but in fact it represents the interests of the holders of copyrights, patents and trademarks.


 * WIPO has as its core objectives the promotion of creative intellectual activity and the facilitation of the transfer of technology related to intellectual property to the developing countries in order to accelerate economic, social and cultural development

Since there is a dispute between a well-known international organization (the UN), and the world's foremost promoter of intellectual freedom (RMS), it behooves us to:
 * 1) recognize that this is a matter of dispute
 * 2) stop taking the UN statement at face value
 * 3) describe the dispute - fairly and accuratel.

What's the best way to do this? Say that WIPO says that their objective is X while Stallman says what they really do is Y? Uncle Ed 19:58, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

intro paragraph
Cut from intro:


 * , and has as its core objectives the promotion of creative intellectual activity and the facilitation of the transfer of technology related to intellectual property to the developing countries in order to accelerate economic, social and cultural development (art. 1 of the 1974 Agreement between the UN and the WIPO)

History paragraph says:


 * Under Article 3 of this Convention, WIPO seeks to "promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world."

Stallman seems to think that WIPO is more keen on preserving the power and rights of those holding patents and copyrights, than on promoting creativity or transferring technology. He argues elsewhere that, e.g., medical patents make it hard for poor countries to get ahold of medical technology (such as new drug discoveries). This would seem to be directly opposed to any objective of promoting technology transfer.

Am I missing something, or is there really a dispute here? Uncle Ed 20:04, July 11, 2005 (UTC)


 * I (re-)inserted in the intro an explanation about why the Organisation was created by the Contracting Parties to the "Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization". That is factual, and hopefully better. You might wish to insert a statement (in the critique section or in the intro) about Stallman's opinion, preferably with proper source cited. cheers. --Edcolins 07:39, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

NPOV issue
I removed this statement form the "critique" section:
 * In recent years, WIPO has sought to aggressively promote the interests of intellectual property owners.

This is hardly NPOV. Source citation needed. The remaining sentence starting with "Much of the important work is done through committees, (...)" should be introduced by something to make it consistent now. Or removed as well. Any idea? --Edcolins 07:07, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Please Imporve This Article
This article is terrible. Considering the importance of intellectual property in the US and around the world, it is pretty sad that the article on the WIPO is slightly more than 400 words. Several things desperately need to be added:

-More detail to the history of the WIPO

-Some dialogue concerning the effect the WIPO has on member countries of the WTO (specifically the use of patented drugs in the southern hemisphere)

-Links the legislation the WIPO has endorsed

-Enforcement mechanisms —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.111.195.147 (talk • contribs)

East Timor
None of the changes in the recent stream indicated the reasons for change or revery. Both "East Timor" and "Timor-Leste" are correct, but the latter is the version in formal usage by the UN, which seems the appropriate decider in the context. On the other hand, East Timor is the page name, so a link directly to that will avoid redirects. Hope that's OK for everyone. Tim B 17:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, please stop the edit war and find a consensus on the talk page. Also read Three-revert rule if you don't want to be blocked. For this one, this one and this one, 3bulletproof16, you could already be blocked! --Edcolins 20:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * It isn't an edit war. We are involved in a problem with a sockpuppeteer. We are only reverting the edits of the indef blocked socks. Contact admins Deskana and Yamla for more information. Also see Suspected sock puppets/TJ Spike‎ and Requests for checkuser/IP check. --  bullet proof  3:16 20:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Alright, thanks for the info... --Edcolins 20:46, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * That would be fair enough, but (1) a note in the edit summary would be useful and (2) whatever the rights and wrongs of the alleged sock puppeteer elsewhere, the edit had a point of sorts in this context. As I pointed out above, the name which they were constantly putting in is actually more correct in the context, since the article is specifically talking of UN Member States rather than names in most commonly recognized forms. Also reverting without explanation a compromise suggestion from a user who has made a number of edits to this article over a period of over a year and points to reasoned explanation on the talk page is poor manners at best. Tim B 21:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The page was reverted to the last version made by User:TJ Spyke, which was the last edit made to the page before the sockpuppet reverted. Wikipedia policy states that the use of sockpuppets to disrupt Wikipedia is vandalism, therefore the initials "RVV" (Revert Vandalism) where used in the edit summary to revert the sockpuppet's actions. If there are any changes that you made before TJ Spyke's edit to the page that are now gone, then that is something that you need to discuss with him since the page was only reverted back to his version because of the sockpuppets actions. Just following policy. -- bullet proof  3:16 21:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * What about this edit then here, after the sockpuppet disruption, and before your last edit? --Edcolins 21:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Check it again . It was reverted to the last version by TJ Spyke. I wasn't looking at the history page at the time of the revert. I was looking the sock's contrib page while reverting. I didn't do it because I disagreed with Tims edit, I just didn't even see. I reverted it because I noticed that the sock cotinued to revert and didn't even see Tims edit. -- bullet proof  3:16 22:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Alright, thanks. I have reverted your last rvv to the last version by Tim, who had already considered the issue indeed, even if you had not seen it. --Edcolins 22:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Washington Post citation
I suggest to remove the citation of the Washington Post introduced by Skilful on 31 December 2007.

Skilful misrepresents the point that the author of the article (Lawrence Lessig) is making: Skilful uses Lois Boland's statement as evidence that WIPO is working against the interest of citizens. Their argument is that because a USPTO director of international relations said it, it must be true; an argument by authority therefore.

However, the point that Lawrence Lessig wants to make in his article is that Boland's statement is "flat wrong". He refers to Boland as "one hapless government official revealed-through her apparent ignorance".

Therefore, we cannot use Boland's statement as evidence here.

Deivo (talk) 11:13, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your suggestion. I have removed most of the material in that paragraph. The section "Critique" seriously lacks attribution and needs improvement. Thanks again. --Edcolins (talk) 18:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Faulty Web Page Rendering and Misplacement of "[ edit ]" Links
It should be noted and corrected that (as of July 10, 2009) the "[ edit ]" links to various subsections of the article are inappropriately shifted in location beyond proximity to their corresponding editable content. This may result in corruption of edits and confused web page interactions. As long as the page is unlocked the misplacing of edit links should be considered an error. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.167.70.125 (talk) 00:57, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

History
I would propose to change the second last history paragraph to:

The Agreement marked a transition for WIPO from the mandate it inherited in 1967 from BIRPI, to promote the protection of intellectual property, to one that involved the more complex task of promoting technology transfer and economic development. [7]

Which would amount to removing "in theory" and "However, these two mission are often not compatible. [8]" - it seems that this statement (i) would not belong to this paragraph, and, (ii) cannot be inferred from the source cited.

Since I have a possible conflict of interest and non-NPOV, I will not make any edit myself. Thanks.

--Fabiow 2011 (talk) 17:04, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks for the request. The sentence "However, these two mission (sic) are often not compatible. [8]" appeared indeed to constitute original research. --Edcolins (talk) 20:41, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

The map is WRONG!
If you go to http://www.wipo.int/members/en/ you'll see that Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Malta and the Holy See are actually members of the WIPO. The shown map says otherwise as is could be outdated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vincenzo.romano (talk • contribs)
 * Sorry but I don't see any problem. The map shows that Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Malta and the Holy See are members of the WIPO... See File:WIPO_members_2012.png. --Edcolins (talk) 19:18, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Investigation by U.S. State Department - WP:NPOV
WIPO's response to the allegations should also be presented in the section, and non-U.S. sources should preferably be used as well. --Edcolins (talk) 21:53, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Certainly. What was their response? I did not notice any response in either article.  The only thing close to that was the memorandum written by a WIPO attorney, which I just added in now (i missed it the first time in the MSN article, it was only 1 sentence).  If there are any other articles that have their response, or the WIPO website perhaps, as well as non-U.S. sources, feel free to add them.  I don't have any bias against WIPO, I just heard about the news and added it to Wikipedia.  I'm more than happy to comply with further editing! -- Activism  1234  22:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * UPDATE: Did some more research, a few articles were added recently that I will include, that contain further WIPO responses. I can't find non-U.S. sources, but I do have a wide range of U.S. sources that I will include. -- Activism  1234  22:06, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. This non-U.S. source appears to be quite interesting IMHO: http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/04/06/wipo-calms-anxiety-about-technical-assistance-to-north-korea/ --Edcolins (talk) 22:07, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * No problem. I actually did manage to find one non-U.S. source, I believe it's a media outlet in Korea. I'll check out the one you brought up as well. -- Activism  1234  22:13, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * UPDATE: I added in that IP Watch source you gave, looks pretty reliable. Has the issue of neutrality been cleared up (pretty sure it was just a misunderstanding, there was no bias intended and I'm happy to add more information as it flows and is received and to work with other editors)? -- Activism  1234  22:16, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's much better now, thanks. I have removed the POV tag. But I am still concerned about how the section is structured. I would suggest presenting the facts in a more chronological way, instead of presenting all the U.S. State dept "allegations" and then all the WIPO's "responses". --Edcolins (talk) 22:22, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, what do you mean by that? That's pretty much how it occured - Fox News report --> State Department investigation --> WIPO response. I also disagree with the renaming of the title.  The purpose of the section is to provide info about the State Department Investigation, not to appear as though what WIPO did was perfectly fine (obviously it was in their views, but the State Department thinks it's big enough to investigate) and obviously contains their response.  But the title appears misleading. I've encountered many articles on Wikipedia with similar titles, even when the results of the investigation are that the organization or country didn't do anything wrong.  The current title is redundant, such a section under that title would be more appropriate under "criticism."  The thing about putting it there though is that if the results are WIPO violated U.S./U.N. law, it's far more than criticism, and also the references quote State Department and Congressmen who stated it is a major issue to them, far more than just criticism. -- Activism  1234  22:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The first three words of the section are "In July 2012". However, a response was already provided in April 2012 (see e.g. Intellectual Property Watch reference). That's what I meant... Regarding the title, the original title frankly gave the impression that the U.S. State Department was "above" the U.N. and therefore WIPO. This may be the view of the U.S. State Department but this is certainly not a view shared outside the U.S. (I am not even talking about international law). But, let's be clear: I agree that the current title "Technical assistance to member states, and criticisms" is not excellent either. --Edcolins (talk) 22:43, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok yeah I see what you mean by chronological order. Sure that's not an issue, you can go ahead and arrange that if you'd like (starting with the Fox News revelation - normally I'm not comfortable using Fox News as a ref but here the claim was acknowledged by WIPO and led to investigation too). Perhaps the title can be something along the lines of "Controversy and subsequent U.S. investigation?" -- Activism  1234  22:57, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I renamed the title just "Controversies." This title appears on many Wikipedia pages, and is more neutral than the previous titles, a good compromise in my opinion, and not redundant or awkward wording. I hope you feel the same. Let me know. -- Activism  1234  23:14, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * After having a look at Template:Criticism section and WP:STRUCTURE, I have merged the content of the "Controversies" section into the "history" section. That the title -"Controversies"- appears on many Wikipedia pages is unfortunately not guarantee that it would be appropriate here. --Edcolins (talk) 19:04, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Specifically what about the template/structure caused you to do this? I can see it going both ways, so an explanation may make me shift towards history completely.  All that I got from my glimpses at those was that the template is just a warning about compromising neutrality and the structure should be neutral, but I find that an investigation by the State Department is a bit of a controversy, while it's also a historical fact.  Also, on a side note, there's a huge gap between the lead and the history section. I'm not sure why this is, but it should be changed immediatley. I couldn't figure out how to change it. -- Activism  1234  20:40, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * My apologies. I should have mentioned these sections instead: Avoid sections and articles focusing on "criticisms" or "controversies", Approaches to presenting criticism ("The ideal approach is to integrate the negative criticism into the article: negative information is woven throughout the article in the appropriate topical sections. The article does not have a dedicated "Criticism" section."), Controversy articles and sections, although the page where they come from is just an essay, not a formal Wikipedia policy. In my opinion, integrating the recent dispute in the history section appears to be more elegant. Let's leave it to the reader to decide for himself or herself how controversial this matter is. Some readers may see this dispute as almost business as usual when it comes to the relations between the U.S. and the U.N., see United States and the United Nations. Regarding the huge gap, I haven't got that problem using Firefox, but indeed the problem arises with Internet Explorer, I don't know why exactly. --Edcolins (talk) 20:25, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * OK thanks for supplying that link. As I said above, it doesn't make that big a deal to me whether it's in a new section or it's in history... So I think it's good. Thanks for your help, I appreciate it. -- Activism  1234  21:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Quote regarding open source software
I'm not sure I see the value in providing the opinion of a USPTO official under the heading of History (or possibly at all). If there were a section on views of states or other parties on the role of WIPO, then that might be another issue. But it makes little sense to include this lone comment on this issue in this section. I suggest removing the comment completely, but if editors are attached to it, I would at least remove it from its current section (or greatly expand the context of this comment so that it actually resembles the history of the WIPO). As it stands, this is just some third party spouting off about the role of WIPO, and it adds nothing that I can see. Jmedlong (talk) 10:22, 29 January 2013 (UTC)