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[Jonathan]

From today's USPTO frontpage headline:
At a meeting hosted by the European Patent Office on March 21 - 22, 2005, the Working Group of industrialized nations on intellectual property and development issued the following statement:
The Working Group of industrialised nations on intellectual property and development set up by the meeting in February 2005 at the United States Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria met at the European Patent Office in Munich on 21 and 22 March 2005. The meeting was attended by 53 delegates from Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, the European Commission, the European Patent Office, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States of America.

The meeting reaffirmed its support for the World Intellectual Property Organization’s long-standing work in the area of development-related aspects of IP. The meeting recognised that we should do more to ensure that capacity building is targeted to the expressed needs of developing countries and that we should adopt a “demand driven” approach. We should find ways in which development partnerships can be created, shared and monitored to avoid duplication and assess effectiveness. Capacity building covers not only the building of IP expertise and resources, but should include ensuring that IP systems in developing countries function to facilitate growth and development.

The meeting noted the need to go beyond issues of capacity building and deepen our understanding of the relationship between IP and economic, social and cultural development.

The meeting also discussed existing proposals, including those from Switzerland, the European Union and the United States on the disclosure of the origin/source of genetic resources and related traditional knowledge in patent applications. There was consensus to discuss this matter further within WIPO.

In summary, an active meeting at which all confirmed their commitment to working together with all countries within WIPO to develop the IP system for the benefit of all and with needs of developing countries integral to our work.

[Jonathan]

It appears the USPTO is still giving face / minimum support to the WIPO's worldwide patent harmonization efforts.

The USPTO has already started separate talks with the Japan patent office and the EPO for their own harmonization efforts as some think the WIPO efforts may never come to fruition due to the demands of less industrialized nations to make the harmonization efforts into a method to force richer nations into giving more aid to developing countries by linking the patent process to economic development.

More information on the USPTO/Japan/EPO efforts can be found here:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/speeches/04-31.htm