Howard Knopf: A Public Domain Project for WIPO?

Howard Knopf: A Public Domain Project for WIPO?
It’s no secret that, for a long time, it has not been the best of times at WIPO.

For whatever reason, WIPO has been singularly unsuccessful in the past decade at international norm setting. While it continues to take in enormous amounts of money from its patent and trade-mark operations, and has done a terrific job at domain name dispute arbitration, its treaty making role in substantive law has basically fizzled. The reasons are complex and the result is sad, because there are some really dedicated and highly professional people at WIPO and in various member states who have tried to get good things done.