IPR ISSUES IN THE NEW INFORMATION ORDER Dr Gunmala Suri Faculty, University Business School, Panjab University, Chandigarh

Open and equitable Information Societies require free access to information, as it is the base of all future production. If this raw material is closely controlled, people are excluded from participating in the Information Societies as anyone but passive consumers.
There is a need to ensure an Information Commons where the greatest possible number of people has unrestricted access to scientific and other types of information. How can we set up an infrastructure that would free information from the control of the distributors whose role was created by difficulties of moving around printed matter and other physical objects?
The commons is a generic term that refers to a wide array of creations of nature and society that we inherit, share and hold in trust for future generations. It includes natural systems, such as the atmosphere, the human genome, agricultural seeds, fresh water supplies, wildlife and ecosystems. The commons include the airwaves used by broadcasters, wireless providers, the internet as an open and shared communications infrastructure, information and creative works that constitute our common culture.
To capture the benefits of freedom and innovation that the networked information economy makes possible, we have to build a core common infrastructure. Such a common infrastructure will stretch from the very physical layer of the information environment to its logical and content layers. It must be extended so that any person has some cluster of resources of first and last resort that will enable that person to make and communicate information, knowledge, and culture to anyone else.
Building a core common infrastructure is a necessary precondition to allow us transition away from a society of passive consumers buying what a small number of commercial producers are selling. It will allow us to develop into society in which all can speak to all, and in which anyone can become an active participant in political, social and cultural discourse.
Intellectual property rights are growing in strength and spreading. Many people working in internet related businesses might be familiar with the cease letters from intellectual property owners alleging infringement of a trade mark, patent or copyright.
The whole point of intellectual property is to block imitation and competition. The US and Europe talks of importance of human rights but apparently the right of health to poor people in developing countries is not on count. US and Europe had done little to reform the patent rules at the WTO to gain access to patented drugs for diseases like HIV/AIDS.
One of the real dangers of global intellectual property rules is that they might blow the world's trade regime out of the water. Trade is about goods and services moving across border. The intellectual property law through its complex rules on parallel importation, exhaustion of rights and doctrines of infringement allows owners of intellectual property to stop the movement of goods.
Biopiracy and patenting of indigenous knowledge is a double theft because at first glance it allows theft of creativity and innovation and secondly, the exclusive rights established by patents are based on indigenous biodiversity and knowledge. The patents may be used to create monopolies and make everyday products highly priced. If there were only one or two cases of such claims to invention on the basis of biopiracy, they could be called an error. Biopiracy is an epidemic; 'Neem', 'haldi', 'harar', 'bahera', 'alma', mustard, basmati, ginger, castor, 'Jaramala', 'Amaltas' and now 'karela' and 'Jamun'....the problem is not, as was made out to be in the case of turmeric, an error made by a patent clerk. The problem is deep and systemic. It calls for a systemic change, not a case by case challenge.
TRIPs is based on the assumption that the U.S. style IPR systems are "strong" and should be implemented worldwide. In reality the U.S. system is inherently flawed in dealing with indigenous knowledge and is "weak" in the context of biopiracy, the review and amendment of TRIPs should begin with an examination of the deficiencies and weakness of Western style intellectual property rights systems.
Free bandwidth is a key issue to be addressed in the coming years if culture is supposed to remain free in the digital era. The place that's really most difficult and complicated is the regulation of the electro-magnetic spectrum. It is fully accepted by all governments on earth that they need to regulate the spectrum. We have to use spectrum the way our cell phones use it, by sharing it. Not by giving a piece to him and a piece to her and a piece to them and no piece to you and me. In doing that we are going to challenge the telecommunications companies, the broadcasters, and state power over the spectrum which belongs to all of us.
We stand at a moment of great opportunity and of a challenge to our capacity to make policy that puts human beings at the centre of the networked information society. Digital networks offers an opportunity to enhance our productivity and growth while simultaneously improving democracy and increasing individual freedom. These benefits come at the expense, of incumbents who have adapted well to the industrial model of information production, and are finding it difficult to adapt to the networked information economy that would replace it. The incumbents are pushing and pulling law, technology, and markets to shape the new century in an image of the one that passed. It would be tragic if they were to succeed.