CONFERENCE CALL
AIPPI, PALAIS DES CONGRÈS, PARIS
The 42nd AIPPI
Intellectual Property Congress featured contributions from some of the most influential figures in
intellectual property and a lively debate
among senior judges on the scope of patentability across jurisdictions
Te conference opened on October 4 with a roundtable discussion between some of the key players in global intellectual property: WIPO director general Francis Gurry, EPO president Benôit Battistelli, INPI director Yves Lapierre and Tierry Mollet-Viéville, president of AIPPI.
Moderated by Tierry Sueur, IP director at Air Liquide and co-chair of the congress, the panel discussed the challenges facing multilateralism in the current climate. Gurry acknowledged that WIPO faced a battle to remain integral to the progress of IP internationally, but highlighted its track record of achieving consensus in the past.
Tere was agreement that applications were again rising at the respective offices, but recognition that there is still a long way to go. Gurry said that applications were up by 2.8 percent compared with last year, but that the recovery was “more fragile than we would have expected 12 months ago”.
One of the highlights of the rest of the conference was a feisty panel of seven judges from across jurisdictions, who discussed the limits of patentability, expressing at times controversial views that highlighted discrepancies in judicial attitudes across the globe.
Justice Ravindra Bhat of the Delhi High Court got things off to an interesting start, claiming that “cultural relativism has to be understood” in any discussion of patent rights. He said that there is no absolute right to property enshrined in India’s constitution, and linked the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to discussions about the need for life-saving medical treatments to be universally accessible. He further claimed that patents have been granted for various products “in stark contravention” of the international Convention on Biodiversity.
10 World Intellectual Property Review November/December 2010
Patent offices and courts, he argued, have a responsibility to “balance concerns of the property owner...with public concerns over access to goods and services”.
Tis met with a firm response from Chief Judge Randall Rader of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. “Te US considers property rights to be of great value,” he said, and the balance between public policy and patent protection is not one that should be dealt with by the patent act or patent offices.
He added that the Supreme Court’s recent Bilski decision had shown that even “broad” standards such as the ‘machine or transformation’ test for the patentability of business methods were too narrow.
Te panel—completed by Luo Xia of the Supreme People’s Court in China, Judge Klaus Grabinski of Germany’s Federal Court of Justice, Ernst Numann of the Netherlands Supreme Court, Judge Sylvie Mandel of the Paris Cour de Cassation and Alain Girardet of the Paris Court of Appeals—lasted for three hours and saw further wide-ranging discussion about witnesses, learning from other courts and litigation issues.
Punctuated by an evening at Te Louvre for delegates, the conference ended with a pharmaceutical focus. Panels on Supplementary Protection Certificates, trademarks in the industry and the impact of the European Commission’s pharmaceutical sector enquiry provided a range of perspectives on this vital industry.
Te next AIPPI congress will take place in Seoul, Korea.
www.worldipreview.com
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