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IPR Name DISCLAIMER

This working group has come to recognize that the term "intellectual property rights" carries bias and encourages simplistic overgeneralization. Therefore this working group does not carry the name IPR. In particular, this group does not endorse the legal school of thought, which advocates that productions of the mind shall be treated in a similar way as real estate property. This legal doctrine implicitly backs the concept that copyrights should last forever. This working group deals with patents, copyrights, and trademarks and related issues. We believe that those issues should be dealt with as distinct conceptual issues. The use of the acronym PCT in the URL of this working group shall not be construed as implying that those issues must be dealt with, with the same global legal and cultural framework.

If the IPR acronym is used, we encourage people to give to this acronym the meaning of "Intellectual Productions Rights" instead ( see the interesting paper by Pio Verzola - IRAIA - Indigenous Resources Archive and Information Alternatives - Philippines - cache link ). This is meaning of the IPR acronym that has been adopted in this site, wherever IPR is used. For convenience, this site is also accessible through the URL : WSIS-IPR which was the URL of the non-public preliminary versions. We also encourage everyone involved in the WSIS to use the word "intellectual property" with utmost precaution.

Links concerning terminology :




WSIS-IPR.ORG    WSIS CIVIL SOCIETY WORKING GROUP