US Congress wades in on WIPO

Five members of the US Congress, including three members of the US Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet, have sent a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry urging him not to back Francis Gurry for re-election to the post of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) director general.

Gurry’s first six-year term as director general of WIPO is due to expire on September 30, 2014.

In 2012, according to the congressmen, he approved the shipment of American computer equipment to North Korea and Iran.

In the letter dated September 19, the group said it had a “critical national interest in WIPO’s governance”, and that Gurry’s behaviour in this regard must “disqualify him from receiving support from the US government.”

“This is activity that would have put any US citizen behind bars, but when caught in the act, Gurry did not stop or even apologise,” the message said.

The letter was sent just before WIPO’s 51st series of meetings of the assemblies of the member states, which got underway on September 23.

It was written by the House Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet chairman Howard Coble, ranking member Melvin Watt and member Zoe Lofgren, along with Anna Eshoo, a ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Coble and Ros-Lehtinen are Republicans, while Watt, Lofgren and Eshoo are Democrats.

“We call upon the administration to work diligently to identify and support an alternative candidate for leadership of this most important agency,” the note concludes.

The WIPO coordination committee will assemble on March 6 and 7, 2014 to nominate the next director general. A decision on the nomination will be made at next year’s WIPO general assembly.

A spokesperson for WIPO declined to comment.

The assembly concludes on October 2.