Climate Change: Technology Transfer or Compulsory License?

Climate Change: Technology Transfer or Compulsory License?

By: Lawrence A. Kogan, Esq.


President, Institute for Trade, Standards, and Sustainable Development (ITSSD)


Presented at


American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Monthly Caucus Luncheon


January 15, 2010

I. Introduction and Welcome

II. Overview of the Copenhagen Conference

A. Legal Objective:

B. Political Problems:

· Lack of Trust in GHG Emissions Reduction Verification

· Clean/Green Technology Patent/Trade Secret Protections at Risk

o Officials from China, India and Brazil have proposed that new green technologies be made subject to “compulsory licensing”, which is tantamount to waiving IPRs.

§ UNFCCC Arts. 4.3 and 4.5
§ WIPO General Assembly Cluster C “Technology Transfer, Information and

Communication Technologies and Access to Knowledge”

C. Non-Legal Result/Outcome: A limited and nonbinding instrument known as the “Copenhagen Accord”.

· Flaws in the UN process, which demands consensus among the members of the international community, were exposed at Copenhagen and caused chaos.

o E-10 group of countries – largest GHG emitters would include: the United States, the European Union, China, Russia, India, Japan, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and Brazil.

III. Top-Down Proposed International Solutions to the Broader Problem that Threaten to Adversely Reform International Regulation of IPRs:

A. Creation and execution of a Doha Declaration on Climate Change:

B. Creation of Multilateral and/or Intergovernmental Funds:

· Fund grants would be subject to “Global Access Principles”, which would set forth rules for the international management of IPRs.

· Funds would create an additional UNFCCC bureaucracy and outside ‘expert’ committees.

C. Proposals Made Within the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents:

· SCP/14/4 pars. 86-87; 122-123.

· SCP/13/3 at par. 142.

· SCP/13/3 at pars. 13, 46, 91-93 and 141-142; SCP/13/2 at pars. 141-142.
o http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/scp/en/meetings/session_14/studies/itssd_2.pdf

· Mandatory ‘open’ ‘royalty-free’ patent-rich standards coupled with Patent Pools and/or Licenses of Right are favored solutions.

§ http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/scp/en/meetings/session_14/studies/itssd_1_summary.pdf
§ http://www.wipo.int/scp/en/meetings/session_14/studies/itssd_1.pdf

D. Top-Down Patent and Standardization Proposals Made by the Chinese Government at the National Level with International Consequences:

· China 2005 proposal to WTO Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee G/TBT/W/251, G/TBT/W/251 Add.1. (2005)).

· The Standardization Administration of China (“SAC”)’s recently drafted Proposed Regulations for the Administration of the Formulation and Revision of Patent-Involving National Standards, mandate free-of-charge or FRAND at a price significantly lower than normally royalties patent licensing. Articles 8, 9, 12 and 13.

§ This will have a severe impact on US clean/green technologies.

§ “Only one of the top ten solar photovoltaic (PV) producers in the world is American; only one of the top ten wind turbine producers is American; and only two of the top ten advanced battery producers are from the U.S.

IV. Is There Still a Sufficient Incentive to Innovate in Clean/Green Technologies After Copenhagen and With China in Mind?

· IPRs patents and trade secrets subject to reverse-engineering.

· Costs of compliance will increase to reach GHG reduction targets and reduce job creation.

V. US Domestic Considerations

A. Top-Down Proposed US National Solutions:

· Condition federally funded government patent grants to universities and private parties on the licensee’s exhaustion of the patent on compliance with ‘humanitarian licensing clauses’. (e.g., US NIH)

· Reform Bayh-Dole legislation

B. Bottom-Up University Alternative Licensing Solutions:

· Some US universities have begun to change their licensing practices to incorporate ‘humanitarian’ or ‘open licensing’ policies.

o Humanitarian

o Open Licensing

§ Equitable Access Licensing Clauses

§ Reach-Through Licensing Clauses

V. Which do you prefer: Tech Transfer or Compulsory License?

A full version of this presentation is accessible online via the www.itssd.org website at:

http://itssd.org/LKogan%20-%20Climate%20Change%20-%20Technology%20Transfer%20or%20Compulsory%20License%20-%20ANSI%20Luncheon%201-15-10.doc

The Absurdity & Multitude of European Fruit & Vegetable Standards Can Best Be Explained in Terms of Disguised Protectionism

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/07/AR2008070702612_pf.html

Europe Debates Perfection It Demands of Its Produce


By John Ward Anderson


Washington Post Foreign Service


July 8, 2008


PARIS -- When is an onion more than an onion, or less? How can consumers choose between a carrot and a mere pretender? That bendy cucumber, those wannabe peaches -- do they have the firmness of character to be on the shelf?


Urgent and vital questions all, especially for lawmakers in the European Union, which has 34 regulations on marketing standards -- from the allegedly essential to the patently absurd -- for fruits and vegetables.


Consider the Class I cucumber, which must be "practically straight (maximum height of the arc: 10 mm per 10 cm of the length of cucumber)." Translation: A six-inch cucumber cannot bend more than six-tenths of an inch. Following 16 pages of regulations on apples (Class I must be at least 60mm, or 2 1/3 inches, in diameter) come 19 pages of amendments outlining the approved colors for more than 250 kinds.


As for peaches, "to reach a satisfactory degree of ripeness . . . the refractometrix index of the flesh, measured at the middle point of the fruit pulp at the equatorial section must be greater than or equal to 8° Brix."


Had enough? So has the European Commission's agriculture commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel of Denmark. She proposes scrapping all but 10 of the regulations, arguing that they are needlessly cumbersome and bureaucratic, and that they lead to people throwing away perfectly edible fruits and vegetables for cosmetic reasons at a time when the world is suffering food shortages and rapid price increases. She hopes representatives from the 27-nation bloc will vote to streamline the regulations at a meeting this month.


"We don't need 34 regulations to decide how round an artichoke should be or how thin a cucumber can be," said Boel's spokesman, Michael Mann, noting that such rules give the E.U. its reputation as an out-of-control bureaucracy. "


A bent cucumber is as good as a straight one," he declared. "Let the shopper decide."


But Boel has a fight on her hands, European officials say, because as many as 19 E.U. countries apparently oppose the simplification scheme. A note to the European Commission from the Spanish and Italian delegations, backed by France and Hungary, argued that "marketing standards play an important role in facilitating and ensuring transparency in market operations while protecting customers at the same time." [DISGUISED PROTECTIONISM IS AT PLAY!!]


The regulations are particularly ridiculed in Britain, where, according to a recent article in the Independent newspaper, "the bent cucumber -- beside its maligned compatriot, the straight banana -- has been wielded by Eurosceptics eager to clobber the European Union." London's Daily Mail gushed that "bendy cucumbers, nobbly strawberries and apples the wrong shade of red are to make a comeback in our supermarkets."


The E.U.'s regulations set three quality standards (Extra, Class I and Class II) that require vendors to carefully label their products. That enables them to charge higher prices for better-looking and, according to Gerard Ioli, owner of an upscale produce stand a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower, better-tasting fruits and vegetables.


"It's a choice for the customer," Ioli said. "He has enough information on the label to make a decision about what he wants to buy. It's real competition." [NO. ITS GOVERNMENT FACILITATED & CONTROLLED MARKET-MAKING DEFINED BY A CONFLUENCE OF BUSINESS & NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION (POLITICAL & SOCIAL PRESSURE GROUP) INTERESTS. THE LABELS ARE CONFUSING AND OFTEN MISREPRESENT THE QUALITY & PERFORMANCE OF THE PRODUCTS].


In Ioli's store, as in many French markets, customers are not allowed to touch the produce, so there is no squeezing of avocados, thumping of watermelons or smelling of cantaloupes. [PRECISELY. THE CONSUMER IS NOT PERMITTED TO SEE WHETHER THE THE FRUITS OR VEGETABLES MEET THE STANDARDS OF PERFORMANCE SET FORTH ON THE LABELS. RATHER, CONSUMERS ARE COMPELLED TO TRUST THE 3RD PARTY CERTIFICATION ON THE LABEL.]


Ioli palmed two identical-looking cherry tomatoes -- one classified Extra, the other Class I -- and offered a taste test to prove that all tomatoes are not created equal. Sure enough, the Extra was sweeter, juicier, pulpier and all around superior. "My clients know what they are buying, and they know that if it's labeled 'Extra,' it tastes better and costs more, and they will buy it," he said.


David Parsons, 39, a telecommunications consultant from Boston, has become something of a veggie regulation evangelist in the 10 years he has lived in France. "People will pay for the value of what they see and what they taste," he said while browsing at Ioli's stand. ". . . The French want fruit to be ripened on the vine to get the most vitamins."


But for others, the efforts to regulate produce have simply gone too far.


Let's consider the onion for a moment, and the E.U.'s "Regulation (EEC) No 2213/83 of 28 July 1983 laying down quality standards for onions and witloof chicory." You would think that the 10 pages of standards and the 19 amendments and corrections made in the 25 years since the regulation's enactment would leave little doubt about the required size, shape and color of an onion, and the amount of peeling, bruising, staining, cracking, root tufting and sprouting that is permissible. You would be wrong.


In January 2007, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture issued a report in which it took 29 pages to explain "quality standards for onions," complete with 43 photographs.

Green & Healthy Industry Standards Increasingly Used to Secure a Competitive Advantage, Give Rise to Lawsuits

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/86/8619cover2.html

Sorting Through The Confusion In Personal Care Certification


By Marc S. Reisch


Chemical & Engineering News


May 12, 2008


Volume 86, Number 19, at p. 16


Personal care product certification standards have become a high-stakes, hotly contested issue.
Late last month, Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps sued personal care product makers Jason Natural Cosmetics and Estée Lauder, along with Stella McCartney's Care and two standards certification organizations, Oasis and Ecocert, to "stop them from making misleading organic labeling claims."

Dr. Bronner's, an Escondido, Calif.-based maker of cleansing and moisturizing products that claims its main ingredients are made with certified organic materials, filed the suit in California Superior Court together with the Organic Consumers Association.


"We have been deeply disappointed and frustrated by companies in the 'natural' personal care space who have been screwing over organic consumers, engaging in misleading organic branding and label call-outs on products that were not natural in the first place, let alone organic," company President David Bronner said in filing the suit.


Bronner claimed, for instance, that the major cleansing ingredient in Jason's natural and organic liquid soaps, body washes, and shampoos is "sodium myreth sulfate, which involved ethoxylating a conventional nonorganic fatty chain with the carcinogenic petrochemical ethylene oxide, which produces carcinogenic 1,4-dioxane as a contaminant."


The suit also charges that certifying organization Ecocert "engages in creative misinterpretation of its own rules in order to accommodate clients engaging in organic mislabeling." It charges that the recently formed group Organic & Sustainable Industry Standard (Oasis), largely backed by U.S. industry stalwart Estée Lauder, has set weak standards. Oasis, it charges, permits use of the label "organic" even if personal care products contain hydrogenated and sulfated ingredients "such as sodium lauryl sulfate made from conventional agricultural material grown with synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides and preserved with synthetic petrochemical preservatives."

As the Dr. Bronner's suit suggests, there is a great deal of confusion in the industry over organic standards. In many cases, cosmetic makers are still grappling with definitions of what is natural, organic, or sustainable. Many of the standards organizations are in talks to harmonize the standards among them, but some in the industry are skeptical about their ability to agree.

Dr. Bronner's was itself part of a working group at the Washington, D.C.-based Natural Products Association that was formed about a year ago to come up with a definition for the term "natural" as it applies to personal care products. NPA issued its definition and natural seal earlier this month. "Arriving at a clear definition for use of the word natural is something both our industry and consumers want," says Daniel Fabricant, NPA's vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs. Other terms such as organic and sustainable are really subsets of natural, Fabricant says.

NPA's natural certification seal will appear on personal care ingredients that meet its definition of natural. Formulations must be at least 95% natural and involve no processes that adversely alter purity. In addition, the products must contain ingredients that come from a renewable or plentiful source. The standard permits nonnatural ingredients only when "there are absolutely no suspected potential human risks."

Other U.S. groups are also working on standards for personal care products. NSF International, which defines itself as a "public health and safety company," published a 46-page draft document earlier this year to define a standard for organic personal care products. According to the group, the standard under development will not address toxicology or social responsibility but only organic label claims.


Oasis has developed its own standards to certify formulations containing synthesized ingredients using certified organic plant materials. According to Oasis, "There has been no united voice among health and beauty companies that has supported credible development of organic and sustainable production, or the ability to communicate what this means to retailers and consumers." In addition to Estée Lauder, founders of the group include ingredient maker Cognis and personal care product companies such as Aveda and L'Oréal.


In February, the Canadian environmental, health, and food safety standards certification firm Certech Registration began offering natural and organic certification to cosmetics makers. According to its President Brian Lane, until Certech began to offer its own standards certification, North American firms had to resort to regulation intended for agricultural products, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program.


Europeans are further ahead in the effort to define and certify cosmetic products. France-based Ecocert was founded in 1991 largely to certify organic food products. In the U.K., the Soil Association certifies personal care products that meet its standards for organic content. Another European group, the European Natural & Organic Cosmetics Interest Grouping (ENOCIG), recently formed a partnership with the German Cosmetic, Toiletry, Perfumery & Detergent Association (known by its German initials IKW) to establish the NaTrue label for natural cosmetics. And the Federation of German Industries & Trading Firms (known by its initials BDiH) also has a set of standards governing natural personal care ingredients.


Certification standards are still up for debate and are likely to continue causing confusion. But unless ingredient makers and formulators sort out their differences, the subject of what is natural, organic, and sustainable may have to be sorted out in court.

Using Eco-Labels to Promote Producer & Consumer Behavior Modification May Very Well Give Rise to Disguised Trade Barriers, Admits UN

http://www.unep.ch/etb/publications/Ecolabelpap141005f.pdf


The Trade and Environmental Effects of Ecolabels: Assessment and Response


United Nations Environment Program (2004)


Executive Summary


There is no easily accessible, independent body of data on the environmental effectiveness of ecolabelling. Despite the relatively high profile of the five labels that are the focus of this study, adequate data does not even exist on them. Anecdotal evidence and proxy indicators (many of which are imperfect) are not a sufficient basis for evaluating the environmental usefulness or desirability of ecolabelling programmes. In addition, it is currently difficult to isolate the effects of labelling from other variables that could lead to more sustainable production and consumption. There remains an urgent need to collect additional, reliable scientific data on the
environmental effects of existing ecolabelling programmes.


Neither is reliable, quantified evidence available concerning changes in trade flows – positive or negative – related to ecolabelling.


Minimizing undesirable trade effects

Two problems deserve to be given particular attention:

• the lack of checks or balances in regard to the proliferation of ecolabels, including the lack of any way to harmonize existing and new ones; and


• the cost of conformity assessment (often the most significant barrier for developing country producers), which is related to the proliferation of ecolabels.


The discussions on ecolabelling within the World Trade Organization (WTO) seem unlikely to progress in the short to medium term. Discussions on ‘labelling for environmental purposes’ under the Doha agenda are taking place in the Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE). This committee has no authority to create new rules on labelling or to amend existing ones. The Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (CTBT) has the authority to create new rules in this area, but it remains unconvinced that rules for ecolabelling should differ from those for other types of labelling programmes. In any case, the CTBT is unlikely to turn its attention to
ecolabelling before 2006 at the earliest.


Even if WTO members were to discuss the need for new ecolabelling rules in the CTBT, anything this committee decided would impose rules only on governments. The WTO Agreements do not directly impose obligations on the types of private bodies that develop most ecolabelling programmes, nor do they impose obligations on companies establishing purchasing requirements or buying preferences. The WTO does not provide a forum that includes these bodies and other non-governmental stakeholders in the trade of ecolabelled goods. For all these reasons, the WTO does not appear to be adequately equipped to address the issue of this type of environmental requirement, which is increasingly being imposed through supply chains.


...(pp. 24-26)

Potential impacts of ecolabelling As mentioned earlier, no reliable information is available on the extent to which any of the five ecolabels has affected trade flows from developing countries because of their possible role as technical barriers to trade. To date, almost no concrete concerns have been expressed within the WTO or any other forum regarding a specific Type I ecolabelling programme.


Concerns have tended to be general in nature and to be directed at environmental labelling in general. A review of the potential negative impacts of ecolabelling can do little more than summarize the widely expressed but largely unsubstantiated concerns expressed by WTO members.

[ Polak, John, 2003: ‘Trade as an Environmental Policy Tool? GEN, Ecolabelling and Trade,’ paper presented at the World Trade Organization Public Symposium: Challenges Ahead on the Road to Cancun, ‘Ecolabelling: Trade Opportunities & Challenges’, 16-18 June 2003. One exception has been the March 1998 submission by the Colombian Government to the WTO CTE CTBT setting out its concerns about the various European ecolabelling schemes for flowers. See WT/CTE/W/76 and G/TBT/W/60, World Trade Organization, Geneva, 9 March 1998.]


...To understand the range of concerns expressed by WTO members, it is important to note that within the WTO context an ecolabel is treated as a specific type of standard, accompanied by a mark of conformity. Therefore, virtually all the concerns WTO members have expressed about standards and conformity assessment procedures, and virtually all the problems they have with implementing the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), exist in the context of ecolabelling.

[Both the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) and the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Provisions (SPS Agreement) contain provisions relevant to ecolabelling. For the sake of clarity and simplicity, this paper focuses on the TBT Agreement.]


...The TBT Agreement outlines certain procedural obligations that are intended to ensure that standards, technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures are not prepared, adopted or applied by one member in such a way that they impose unnecessary or unjustified barriers to trade on other members. In particular, Annex 3 of the TBT Agreement outlines a Code of Good Practice (Standards Code): a number of requirements relevant to the development of voluntary standards. The first of these procedural requirements is the use of international standards.


Article F of the Standards Code calls on standards bodies to base their work on relevant existing or imminent international standards. This presents problems in the case of ecolabels. One problem is that, apart from the generic ISO 14020 series of ecolabelling template standards and the generic ISO 14040 life-cycle assessment standards, both of which are tools for developing ecolabels rather than actual ecolabels, there are very few international ecolabels. Ecolabels are generally developed based on national environmental priorities and preferences. They have evolved outside the context of traditional national standards bodies, and therefore outside the context of international standardization infrastructure. Moreover, there is no working definition of ‘international standard’ in the TBT Agreement.


Because there is no legal basis for ensuring that new standards do not overlap or conflict with existing ones, there is no check on the proliferation of ecolabels. Since developing countries are standards takers, some in the trading community argue that a proliferation of ecolabels can greatly increase the cost to these countries of accessing different markets. This is one of the main complaints expressed by developing country exporters. In the case of each of the five ecolabels discussed in this report, there is a variable degree of competition between different standards and frequently there is no scientific information available to justify the differences.


Some experts believe that some bodies that develop ecolabels have been set up for the express purpose of offering an alternative to existing ecolabels, either as a way to add confusion to the marketplace or to provide alternatives with less strict criteria.

[‘Building Bridges: Ethical Standards, Sustainable Development and Trade’, meeting report, Geneva, Switzerland, 12-13 June 2003, meeting sponsored by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation and GTZ; on file with the author.]


Articles J, K, L and M of the Standards Code address issues related to transparency and coordination. They call on standards bodies to publish a work plan every six months, to associate with national members of ISONet, to allow comment periods of at least 60 days, to publish a notice of the comment period, and to provide drafts of standards for comment to any interested party within the territory of a WTO member. Because most ecolabels are developed by non-governmental bodies outside the traditional standards networks and infrastructure, it is likely that many ecolabel practitioners are unaware of (or lack the means to implement) these
procedural provisions. In some cases, traditional national standards bodies (e.g. ISO member bodies) are unwilling to interact with non-traditional standards bodies developing ecolabels, and vice versa. As a result, it is often very difficult for producers in one country to obtain timely information on the existence or specific requirements of an ecolabel in another country.

[ISONet (the ISO Information Network) is an agreement between standardizing bodies to combine their efforts in order to make information on standards, technical regulations and related matters readily available whenever it is required. See http://www.wssn.net/WSSN/RefDocs/isonetdir/introduction.html .]


Article 5.1.2 of the TBT Agreement requires WTO members to encourage non-governmental standards bodies operating within their territory to ensure that conformity assessment procedures are no stricter than necessary.


The cost of third-party certification has been identified generally as a particular concern of SMEs and low-cost producers in developing countries. From a trade barrier perspective, the important issue with regard to certification costs is whether these costs are relatively higher in developing countries than in developed ones. Statistically significant data on the costs of certification does not exist, but it is widely accepted that certification costs are a function of:

• the availability of domestic certification (and hence accreditation) services;

• the size of the facility; and

• the gap between existing practices and the requirements of the ecolabel.


The accepted wisdom is that conditions in developing countries are such that each of these factors contributes to relatively higher certification costs vis-à-vis those in developed countries. It is also significant that the only conformity assessment procedure accepted by most ecolabelling programmes, and all of the programmes addressed in this report, is independent third-party certification. It would be worthwhile to assess whether some markets would accept second-party certification or self-declarations of conformity for some types of ecolabels under some circumstances.


Article 6.3 of the TBT Agreement requires WTO members to encourage non-governmental standards bodies operating within their territory to be willing to enter into negotiations for the conclusion of agreements on the mutual recognition of conformity assessments procedures. As mentioned above, many ecolabels, including those of the FSC, MSC and FLO, maintain a monopoly over the accreditation of conformity assessment service providers and therefore do not enter into mutual recognition agreements with other competent bodies. FSC auditors are also forbidden from certifying to any other SFM standard. Experience with mutual recognition
agreements is very thin on the ground. However, a system for mutual recognition has been established under the Japanese national organics regulation, whereby Japanese-accredited conformity assessment bodies can enter into ‘trust contract of providing inspection data’ with International Organic Accreditation Service (IOAS)-accredited certifiers in the country of production.

[See, for example, OECD, 2002: Government Regulations Affecting Trade in Products of Organic Agriculture, COM/ENV/TD (2002)86/FINAL, p. 22.]


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NOTWITHSTANDING THESE WTO LOOPHOLES, THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION CONTINUALLY ENDEAVORS TO EXPLOIT THEM IN AS MANY INDUSTRY SECTORS AS POSSIBLE:


See Eco-Fashion or Eco-Fashism: How Involved is the EU Commission in Promoting 'Market-Based' Eco-Labels as Disguised Trade Barriers?
http://itssddisguisedtradebarriers.blogspot.com/2008/03/eco-fashion-or-eco-fashism-how.html

*************************************************************************************
READERS SHOULD ALSO CONSIDER HOW THE UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAM (UNEP) CONTINUES TO PROMOTE NATIONAL / REGIONAL GOVERNMENTAL USE OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT-CENTRIC ECO-LABELING SCHEMES AS A FORM OF PUBLIC BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION, APPARENTLY TO EXPLOIT WTO LOOPHOLES


At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg last year, governments urged active work to speed the shift to sustainable production and consumption. They noted
that while all countries must be involved in this effort, the developed countries should take the lead. In February [2003], at UNEP’s Governing Council meeting, ministers voted to strengthen work on sustainable consumption, promote design of sustainable products and services, reinforce voluntary work with business sectors, and increase support for awareness-raising campaigns.


UNEP is also working through the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative – and an exciting new project to enhance the image of green lifestyles – to increase the availability and impact of information in this area. As part of the effort to promote more sustainable production and consumption, UNEP has stepped up its activities with the retail sector, whose role lies particularly in helping change consumption patterns.


To realize the importance of this sector, just think about your last retail transaction. It may have involved something as small and simple as a cotton T-shirt or a packet of ground coffee. Or perhaps it was a major purchase – a leather-and-wood armchair or a refrigerator-freezer. We do not ordinarily stop to consider the multitude of environmental and social effects that a single,
seemingly simple transaction can have.


For instance:

resource use – from metal extraction to consumption of water and wood (the latter possibly involving unsustainable forestry);


energy use – by your car if you drove to the store where the purchase was made; by the store itself, any vehicles involved in delivering products to the store, and employees’ personal
vehicles;


by wholesalers;


and by the furniture assembler, leather producer, animal breeder, wood cutter, fabric mill, coffee packager, and so on.


And don’t forget the CO2 emissions connected with all that energy consumption;


waste generation – any packaging you throw away when you get home is just the tail end of a long stream that begins in the mine, the coffee grove, the farmyard or the forest;


negative land use effects – e.g. damage to the landscape from suburban megastores and surface sealing by their huge parking lots;


possibly, dubious labour standards at the store or farther up the supply chain;


the risk of health effects for you and your family, as well as store and supplier employees, if the use of hazardous substances (e.g. arsenic in wood treatment, heavy metals in appliance
manufacture) is involved.


See Shopping for a better world: sustainability and retailing, Industry and Environment Volume 26 No. 1 January – March 2003, United Nations Environment Program at: http://www.uneptie.org/media/review/vol26no1/UNEP0103.PDF .

The Emperor's Wife Wears No Clothes - How to Improve the International Standards of Public Officials

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/nude-photos-stir-up-sarkozys-uk-visit/20080326092509990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

Nude Photos Stir Up Sarkozys' UK Visit

CNN

Posted: 2008-03-26 09:25:38

LONDON, England (March 26) -- French president Nicolas Sarkozy has started his first official visit to the UK -- the day after it was reported that an auction house is to sell nude pictures of his new wife.

Sarkozy and his wife, the former supermodel Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, were greeted by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall after the presidential plane landed at London's Heathrow airport Wednesday morning.

He was then escorted to Windsor, where he was formally received by the Queen and the Prince of Edinburgh before being taken by carriage through the town.

The French president will enjoy a full state banquet at Windsor Castle Wednesday night, where he will stay as the guest of the Queen. On Wednesday afternoon Sarkozy will address both House of Parliament in French.But his wife Bruni-Sarkozy is likely to attract as much, if not more, attention than her husband during the two-day visit, during which she is expected to meet the UK royals and attend a lunch held in her honor by Sarah Brown, wife of the UK prime minister.Auction house Christie's is to sell photographs of former model Bruni-Sarkozy, taken by Michel Comte in 1993, in New York next month, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.

The agency quoted the French president's office as saying the sale is a private matter.The UK media has covered the president's courtship of Bruni-Sarkozy and subsequent marriage in depth, with several using her visit as reason to reprint images from her modeling career.Many observers in France see the presidential trip as a bid by Sarkozy to regain some of the popularity that saw him elected last May. Watch why Sarkozy is slipping in approval ratings at home. »Since then he has provoked controversy at home with his high-profile relationship with Bruni-Sarkozy, as well as his attempts to shake up French pension and labor laws.On Tuesday Sarkozy hinted that he might boycott the opening ceremony on the Beijing Olympics this summer, agencies reported, following pressure at home to take a tough line on the Chinese crackdown in Tibet.

Closer co-operation on Afghanistan, the credit crunch, immigration and nuclear power are all expected to dominate talks between Sarkozy and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.In an interview with BBC Radio ahead of the visit, Sarkozy said that the UK and France needed to shift from "being cordial to being friendly", the UK's Press Association reported, adding that he wanted the relationship to be "fleshed out by concrete projects on the economy, immigration, security, defense."

"It has been long enough now that we have not been at war, that we are not wrangling," Sarkozy is reported to have said.On Thursday Sarkozy is expected to have talks with UK prime minister Gordon Brown at Downing Street, followed by a UK-France summit at the Emirates Stadium, home to Arsenal Football Club, which boasts a French manager and high percentage of French playing staff.He will then present record-breaking yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur with top French award the Legion d'Honneur at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

Since 2005 China Has Tried To Amend The WTO TBT Agreement & Favored Open, Not Proprietary Standards: Why Has China Not Learned The Value Of IP Rights?

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=599


China Leads Developing Country Push For Balance In IP And Standards


Intellectual Property Watch


24 April 2007


By William New


BEIJING - China’s rapid development can be seen everywhere in the capital, where the skyline is perforated by construction cranes in all directions. But China’s vigorous effort to update structures does not stop at its borders. China is one of several leading developing countries that have become players on the global economic stage and now are demanding a balancing of global governance institutions.


Key developing countries such as China, Brazil, India and South Africa are increasing their efforts to influence global standards-setting proportionate to their rising economic might. But this effort may require substantive changes to the existing structure, changes that some say are already taking place.


A key focus is on the treatment of standards for technology and the related intellectual property rights. Yi Xiaozhun, vice-minister of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, said at a conference last week that standards and IP rights are critical for economies such as China’s that are basing their development on science and technology. But, he said, an “inappropriate convergence” between standards and IP rights has “caused problems.”


“Delayed or inadequate IPR [intellectual property rights] disclosure, stringent IPR licensing conditions and expensive licensing fees run counter to fair competition, hinder the promotion and application of new technologies, obstruct the normal operation of international trade and impede the harmonious development of global economy and society,” Yi said at an 17-18 April conference cosponsored by the commerce ministry and other Chinese agencies, as well as Sun Microsystems. “Developing countries are the worst hit by such problems which effectively hinders their greater participation in economic globalization.”


Chinese officials such as Yi say international standards bodies, which are typically based in western developed countries, have begun to recognise the imbalance in their policies that insufficiently reflect the interests of developing countries. “Standards bodies are mainly controlled by developed countries,” he said. As a result, new standards putting developing countries in an “underprivileged position” have “become new obstacles to international trade.”


Yi urged the World Trade Organization to take into account changes made in the standards bodies. China has argued at the WTO since 2005 for changes to the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), and officials at the conference vowed to continue the fight.


“China holds that in order to ensure smooth implementation of the TBT agreement, attention should be given on the one hand to the efficiency and quality of setting international standards, and on the other hand to the difficulties members face in adopting international standards,” he said.


A primary concern is that standards in the public interest can be affected when it turns out that hidden underlying patents give monopolistic licensing power to companies, usually in the developed countries that own most of the world’s patents. Yi suggested that consortia, groups of industry experts and others assembled to accomplish tasks such as a standards change, may use monopoly power to push their interests in standard-setting. “We cannot deny that an international deviation effect arises,” he said.


In the speech, Yi stressed China’s seriousness about further increasing efforts to protect and enforce intellectual property rights, even though “IPR has created new barriers in the form of standards which have harmed developing countries.”


Manuel Lousada Soares, Brazil’s deputy secretary for industrial technology at the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, did not fault companies for protecting their innovations or consortia for promoting standards. He said the problem is when standards impact public interest issues.


Soares said the TBT agreement states that a technical regulation should be “presumed not to create an unnecessary obstacle to international trade.” He cited efforts by standards bodies to improve early disclosure of patents in standards. Soares reiterated the concern about hidden patents getting included in standards, and said standards can be developed without the technical solutions protected by patents. Brazil backs standards bodies’ efforts to find ways enforce early disclosure, and encourages more cooperative work on the issues, including at the WTO, WIPO and the standards organisations, he said. This includes better analysis of the issues as well as better definitions of terms, he said.


China’s Strategy for Standards


Ni Guangnan, a fellow at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, criticised the standards status quo and laid out a strategy for China to gain influence over standards. He said proprietary standards “cause unfair competition.”


“In the IT [information technology] field, some technologies or products prevail and are thus accepted as de facto standards,” he said. “If these standards are not made open, their intellectual property right will be owned by companies developing them and then become proprietary standards, which will further prevent other rivals from growth and contribute to the monopoly of the companies. For example, Microsoft’s Windows, Office and IE browser.”


Proprietary standards have the negative impact of impeding fair competition, imposing high costs on users, and are a security risk, he said. Therefore, “the adoption of open standards will be promoted,” he said, because they generate fair competition, impose less burden on users, and provide greater system security.


Ni said China, in order to help its companies which have been struggling with the high royalty payments charged by patent-holders whose technologies were accepted in standards, plans to a series of actions. They will form their own patent pools, and will gain the support of international standards development organisations, and will participate in the drafting of standards favourable to China. Government agencies will assist companies in responding to intellectual property rights disputes.


Another plan is to back ex ante RAND terms, meaning disclosure of intellectual property rights before the establishment of a standard, and [license] standards on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis, which has gained support of the US Justice Department. Also, China will support open-source code in software “because its use, copying, modification and re-issuance don’t require royalty,” he said. China also will support open standards for critical areas, he said. De facto standards for Microsoft’s Office have been the dominant document format, which Ni said “has hindered fair competition and prevented manufacturers from getting access to public and important information.”


Richard Suttmeier, a political science professor at the University of Oregon (US), suggested that the rise of “fragmenting” free-trade agreements might have implications for standardisation. He also said the rise of large new economies voicing dissatisfaction raises the question of how much existing economies are interested in reforming organisations or replacing them with something else, as well as to what extent it would be possible to raise coalitions to bring about change.


Zhang Naigen, law professor and director of the international law and intellectual property study centers at Fudan University (China), said the US and the European Union emphasized private rights of intellectual property rights but that they differ on antitrust law. China is still working on its antitrust law, he said.


Andrew Updegrove, an attorney at Gesmer Updegrove in Boston who represents standards coalitions, said patent holders might be the “new colonialists” and said that those who can control standards can control markets. He said a danger is if newly large economies who make their own standards. He encouraged policymakers to seek standards that are in the best interest of all.


Rishob Ghosh, senior researcher at the Maastricht (Netherlands) United Nations University, cited examples of standards that became institutionalised through heavey popular use even though better technologies followed, such as keyboards.


Patrick Rata of the World Trade Organization trade and environment division said the 2005 WTO report on trade showed the application of standards can have beneficial and negative effects on trade. He said the WTO TBT Agreement is flexible on the measures governments take, but says they should not unnecessarily restrict trade. The agreement contains encouragements to harmonise, and says standards should be developed in a transparent and indiscriminate way. Rata also said it would be up to China to decide whether to pursue its concerns about the TBT and standards and to “gauge the interest of other governments” in changing the agreement. China brought it up again in March, he said.


US Officials Busy in China


A number of US officials have been busy in Beijing in recent weeks for a variety of reasons. These include talks on innovation, intellectual property rights and standards, with officials such as Mark Lewis, a US standards expert. Last week, Chris Adams, soon to be the new USTR official in China, was in town with fellow USTR officials Tim Stratford, assistant USTR for China Affairs, and Audrey Winter, his deputy. Last week officials from the two governments met on the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (on structural issues and trade remedies), and this week a planning meeting was expected to held in Beijing for the Strategic Economic Dialogue, an event led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in late May. The JCCT involves USTR and the US Commerce Department together.


Audrey Winter, deputy assistant US trade representative on China affairs, speaking on her own behalf, said in the United States, the government generally leaves standards-setting to private organisations as government might not know what is best for consumers or business. China is considering its anti-monopoly law, and Winter said recent legal cases and statements by US antitrust authorities have set boundaries for action in the area in the US. International trade rules, she said, are aimed at getting government out of the market.


Speaking at a separate 19 April conference at Beijing (Peking) University, Mark Cohen, the US Patent and Trademark Office representative in Beijing, highlighted the debate in China over whether intellectual property rights are a private right, as in the west, or a public right. He referred to Chinese government subsidies for domestic patent applications and said treating IP rights as a private right encourages “robust” innovation, and would lead China to become “a truly innovative economy.” Cohen also downplayed the role of foreign firms in the Chinese IP market as very small.


Also at the 19 April conference, Sun Microsystems Chief Standards Officer Carl Cargill said a lack of research into how standards related to information and communications technology are made makes it an “uncharted area” made up of side deals” consisting of “whispers” and “hopes.” He said no one coordinates consortia and that there are more than 500 standards organisations with few changes since the 1970s. “They never die,” he said.


Cargill also said that standards organisations are unwilling to take full responsibility for identifying who owns the intellectual property rights underneath standards, so the costs of standards are unknown but there is no way to avoid the rights. If one doesn’t pay for them, it’s illegal, if they don’t use them they’re out of the competition, and nations that try to make their own standards as China did with mobile standard WAPI are stopped, he said.

Former House Science Committee Staffer Solicited ITSSD Post-Hearing Testimony On EU & China Use of Standards as Trade Barriers, But Ignored Findings

[THE FOLLOWING E-MAIL EXCHANGE REFLECTS A SOLICITATION FOR POST-HEARING TESTIMONY MADE BY A FORMER HOUSE SCIENCE COMMITTEE SENIOR STAFFER TO THE ITSSD'S CEO DURING APRIL-MAY 2005]


From : Huxley, Olwen
Sent : Monday, May 9, 2005 6:39 PM
To : Lawrence Kogan
Subject : RE: L. Kogan // information// Follow-up


We usually get a transcripts a few days after, and after a laborious editing process which takes a truly unreasonable amount of time, we have the transcripts ready. Couple of weeks?


OH Olwen F. M. Huxley
Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and StandardsHouse Science Committee
2320 Rayburn HOBWashington, DC 20515
ph. (202) 225-8844fx. (202) 225-4438


-----Original Message-----

From: Lawrence Kogan [mailto:ssbs_llc@msn.com]
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 6:37 PM
To: Huxley, Olwen
Subject: RE: L. Kogan // information// Follow-up


Thank you for sending it. How long after this hearing will the transcripts be available to the public - posted to Committee's website? Have a good evening.


Lawrence A. Kogan
President
Sound Science Business Strategies, LLC
1625 K Street, NWWashington, DC 20006
(C) 609-658-7417 (F) 452-8160
___________________________________


From: "Huxley, Olwen" Olwen.Huxley@mail.house.gov>
To: Lawrence Kogan ssbs_llc@msn.com>
Subject: RE: L. Kogan // information>
Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 17:33:06 -0400>


Hi - I owe you some stuff.


Just so you know, the hearing is now scheduled for 2 pm on Wednesday, rather than 10 am.


Here's the list of witnesses:


Dr. Hratch Semerjian is the Acting Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).


Mr. Joe Bhatia is the Vice President for International Operations at>Underwriters Laboratory (UL). UL is a commercial laboratory company that tests products against U.S. and international standards, headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois.


Dr. Don Deutsch is the Vice President for Standards Strategy and Architecture for Oracle, headquartered in Redwood Shores, California.


Mr. David Karmol is the Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs at the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).


Mr. Robert W. Noth is the Manager of Engineering Standards for Deere & Company, headquartered in Moline, Illinois.


Here are the questions:


Dr. Hratch Semerjian, Acting Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Briefly describe how NIST supports standards development and answer the following questions:

1. What is NIST's role in the international standards arena?


2. Describe the Department of Commerce's standards document "Standards and Competitiveness: Coordinating for Results" and the status of the implementation of its recommendations. What remains to be done?


3. How would NIST's FY 2006 budget request improve the U.S. position with respect to standards development? Describe any other NIST standards initiatives that would contribute to the competitive position of U.S. industry.


>-----Original Message----->

From: Lawrence Kogan [mailto:ssbs_llc@msn.com]
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 10:48 AM
To: Huxley, Olwen
Subject: RE: L. Kogan // information


Ms. Huxley:


I am looking forward to receiving you witness list and list of questions for next week's hearing.
Also, my co-director and I would like to know how long after the hearing may we provide 'for the record' comments?

Sincerely,

Lawrence A. Kogan
President
Sound Science Business Strategies, LLC
1625 K Street, NW Washington, DC 20006 (C) 609-658-7417 (F) 452-8160


From: "Huxley, Olwen" Olwen.Huxley@ mail.house.gov
To: Lawrence Kogan ssbs_llc@msn. com
Subject: RE: L. Kogan // information
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:52:17 -0400


These are all very interesting points that you raise, and they aren't the first time I have heard them.


I would be pleased to meet with you and your co-director. I would suggest Friday of next week, since we have a mark-up on Thursday and everything that happens prior to that will be necessarily mark-up related. If Friday doesn't work for you, we can do it the week after.

OH

Olwen F. M. Huxley
Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and Standards
House Science Committee
2320 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
ph. (202) 225-8844 fx. (202) 225-4438


-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence Kogan [ mailto:ssbs_llc@msn. com]
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 1:56 PM
To: Huxley, Olwen
Subject: L. Kogan // information


Dear Ms. Huxley:


Please find attached comments I submitted on Monday, April 18, 2005, in response to the recently revised U.S. Standards Strategy drafted by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). There are also attached weblinks to several papers I have prepared on the subject of EHS regulations and standards being used by the EU as disguised trade barriers.


As you are aware, ANSI is the U.S. National Representative to two ostensibly private non-governmental international standards bodies (the International Organization for Standardization [ISO] and the International Electrotechnical Commission [IEC] that are expressly referenced within the WTO TBT Agreement). The ISO/IEC are charged with developing relevant science and technology-based performance and use orientated international product standards that national governments are supposed to look to prior to enacting national regulations. In fact, with the help of the EU and the UN, the ISO is now in the business of developing food safety and medical device technical standards as well as corporate social responsibility standards. It may eventually get involved in some type of pharma standards, as the WHO isone of many UN agencies that serve as liaison organizations to the ISO.


As you will notice, my comments were prepared in the name of a new NJ-based NGO (a 501(c)(3) charitable, educational, and scientific organization)I have formed with a former European/ UN diplomat that is called: The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD).


ITSSD's comments reflect how the EU has skillfully and systematically linked international regulation and standardization, and injected precautionary principle and environment-centric sustainable norms into the international standards development process. The ITSSD believes that ANSI's inability to detect this phenomenon has created serious vulnerabilities that have adversely impacted the U.S. negotiating position at the ISO/IEC. The ITSSD believes that, given the linkage noted above, this has also created serious vulnerabilities for the U.S. government's negotiating positions at the various WTO-relevant intergovernmental bodies in which different U.S. agencies participate. These include the Codex, the IPPC, the OECD and the UN (FAO, WHO, UNEP & CSD, as well as, others - Global Compact Office, UNDP, UNCTAD, UNIDO, etc.).


Perhaps, ITSSD can render assistance to the House Committee on Science in elaborating upon how its comments to the ANSI relate to the China standards issues now being looking into by the Ways and Means Committee...


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http://www.allbusiness.com/manufacturing/3900831-1.html

Olwen Huxley, a professional staff aide on the House Science Committee's subcommittee on environment, technology and standards,...

Publication: Manufacturing & Technology News Date: Monday, March 12 2007


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[THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENTS CONSIST OF: 1) A JUNE 2005 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL TO THE FORMER CHAIR OF THE HOUSE SCIENCE COMMITTEE OF THE POST-HEARING TESTIMONY PREPARED BY THE ITSSD'S CEO; and 2) EXTRACTS OF SAID TESTIMONY].


http://www.itssd.org/Correspondences/ITSSDlettertoHouseSubcommChairEhlers.pdf


June 3, 2005


The Honorable Vernon J. Ehlers,
Michigan, Chairman
House Science Committee,
Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and Standards
2320 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515


Dear Mr. Ehlers,


Please find attached ‘post-hearing’ testimony that we have prepared for submission to the Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards in connection with the recent hearing on Standards that took place on May 11, 2005. We would appreciate your Subcommittee’s inclusion of this testimony within the official ‘hearing record’.


The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development, Inc. is an independent and nonpartisan not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of a positive global paradigm of sustainable development consistent with World Trade Organization (WTO) principles. We have undertaken considerable research and public outreach activities to highlight the increasing use of disguised regulatory trade barriers cast in the form of overly stringent environment, health and safety regulations and standards that are justified by reference to the need to achieve ‘sustainable development’. We have both observed and analyzed how such measures have increasingly threatened U.S. products and technologies and the science and intellectual property rights-based legal and economic frameworks which are critical to maintaining U.S. global competitiveness in the future.


We thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony, and we remain at your
Subcommittee’s disposal should it be interested in speaking with us further about these issues.


Very truly yours,


Lawrence A. Kogan, Esq.
CEO

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http://www.itssd.org/Correspondences/LKogan-ITSSDtestimony-6-3-05-HouseScienceComm.pdf


Europe, China and the Use of Standards as Trade Barriers How Should the U.S. Respond?


Lawrence A. Kogan, CEO, Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development, Inc.


House Science Committee, Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and Standards


June 3, 2005


Mr. Chairman, and ranking members of the Subcommittee, my name is Lawrence Kogan, and I am CEO and Co-Director of the Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development, Inc. (ITSSD). The ITSSD is an independent and non-partisan not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of a positive paradigm of sustainable development consistent with World Trade Organization (WTO) principles. The ITSSD is pleased and honored to comment about the subtle, complex and significant challenge posed to U.S. global economic and technological competitiveness by the growing use of new market access barriers. During the past several years, it has become more obvious that such disguised trade barriers are typically cast as overly stringent and extra-territorial environment, health and safety (EHS) technical regulations and product and process standards, which have the effect of protecting underdeveloped, lagging or ailing industries in other countries.


Our research has revealed that most such measures are premised on an evolving European norm known as the precautionary (‘better safe than sorry’) principle. As employed by the European Union (EU) the precautionary principle severely restricts or altogether bans the introduction of a number of new and existing U.S. products, substances, processes and technologies into the marketplace, unless they have first satisfied rigorous pre-market authorization requirements that are in excess of relevant international standards, but which are not scientifically, economically or technically justified. Once permitted into the marketplace, they are then subject to overly stringent post-market testing requirements that are also in excess of relevant international standards. In addition to ignoring free market principles, such rules arguably also violate the terms of three WTO agreements: the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement; the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement; and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (1994).


As requested, my testimony will respond to the following two sets of questions posed by the Subcommittee to the list of witnesses that testified during the May 11, 2005 hearing:


1. What has been China's and Europe's approach to the development and use of standards? How is this approach changing international standards development in organizations such as the International Standards Organization, and through bilateral relations with other countries? What are the implications for U.S. trade with China and the rest of the world?


2. Based on the U.S. Standards Strategy that ANSI has been developing, what should the Federal Government, States, U.S. standards development organizations, and companies be doing to reduce their vulnerability to the use of standards as trade barriers, and how could they promote the adoption of non-exclusionary standards in the global marketplace? How should these efforts be coordinated?....