The April 2012 issue of the
WIPO Magazine, which is now online, contains an article titled "Panama: Three Marks for Development". It's not, as one might have thought, an exercising in giving Panama marks (out of five? Or Ten?) for its efforts in using intellectual property as a springboard for industrial and commercial development. Rather, it's the first in a new series of articles which promise to explore how the World Intellectual Property Organization (
WIPO) is helping associations of small local farmers and producers in developing countries to add value to their outputs through product branding (i.e. through "marks").
This article, by freelance journalise Leire Otaegi, reports on the experiences of the producers of three of Panama’s most culturally significant products: Café de Palmira; the Guna people’s finely-stitched cloth “molas” and La Chorrera pineapples. You can check it out
here.
