INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHT
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

The expansion of intellectual property (IP) rights is unlikely to help most developing countries, an independent report says.

Instead, it will increase their costs, by making them pay more for medicines and seeds.

The report says the same arguments apply to the real benefits the internet can bring to the developing world.

It says rich and poor countries have differing interests, and expanding IP rights makes poverty reduction more difficult.

The report is the work of the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights (CIPR), set up by the UK Government but independent of it. The members are from the US, UK, Argentina and India.

The commission urges developed countries, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Intellectual Property Organiszation (WIPO) to take poor countries' circumstances and needs into account when developing IP systems.