International Activities
UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2013 in New York
This summit is held once every three years, gathering the Secretary General and other officers from the headquarters of the United Nations, as well as the CEOs of leading companies throughout the world. It is the UN’s top-level meeting that discusses mainly the issues of peace, human rights, food, water, and women’s issues. This year, it held a special panel session on environmental issues.
In this session, Mr. Kawamura talked about the background of WIPO GREEN and the reason why it was formed, and explained that “in addition to databases, WIPO GREEN needs human resources and organizations to serve as coordinators,” and that “JIPA wishes to contribute to networking in Asia and Africa.” Mr. Kawamura also stated that “although technologies are protected by patent, patent applications for them are not filed in many countries other than Japan, U.S. and Europe, thus diffusion of technologies is not hampered.” In the session, a representative from GE introduced their green products and technologies and explained the process from the development of a technology to its introduction as a product. A representative from the International Finance Corporation explained the process for providing financial support for activities to diffuse such environmental technologies and presented actual cases of financing. In the latter half of the session, media representatives, students and panelists interested in environmental technologies vigorously exchanged information in a Q&A, which continued beyond the scheduled discussion time.
In this summit, elaborate security precautions were taken because Mr. Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, was attending an event held at another nearby venue. Through participation in this special session, JIPA could publicize its activities beyond the borders of the intellectual property field.
