The World Intellectual Property Organization is one of the 17
specialized agencies of the United Nations.
WIPO was created in 1967 "to encourage creative activity, to promote the
protection of intellectual property throughout the world."
WIPO currently has 188 member states, administers 26 international treaties,
and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The current
Director-General of WIPO is Francis Gurry, who took office on October 1,
2008. 186 of the UN Members as well as the Holy See and Niue are Members of
WIPO. Non-members are the states of Marshall Islands, Federated States of
Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Solomon Islands, South Sudan and Timor-Leste.
Palestine has observer status. History
The predecessor to WIPO was the BIRPI, which had been established in 1893 to
administer the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic
Works and the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property.
WIPO was formally created by the Convention Establishing the World
Intellectual Property Organization, which entered into force on April 26,
1970. Under Article 3 of this Convention, WIPO seeks to "promote the
protection of intellectual property throughout the world." WIPO became a
specialized agency of the UN in 1974. The Agreement between the United Nations
and the World Intellectual Property Organization notes in Article 1 that
WIPO is responsible "for promoting creative intellectual
activity and for facilitating the transfer of technology related to
industrial property to the developing countries in order to accelerate
economic, social and cultural development, subject to the competence
and responsibilities of the United Nations and its organs, particularly the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations
Development Programme and the United Nations Industrial Development
Organization, as well as of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization and of other agencies within the United Nations
system." The Agreement marked a transition for
WIPO from the mandate it inherited in 1967 from BIRPI, to promote the
protection of intellectual property, to one that involved the more complex task
of promoting technology transfer and economic development.
Unlike other branches of the United Nations, WIPO has significant financial
resources independent of the contributions from its Member States. In
2006, over 90 percent of its income of just over CHF 250 million was expected
to be generated from the collection of fees by the International Bureau under
the intellectual property application and registration systems which it
administers. In October 2004, WIPO agreed to adopt a
proposal offered by Argentina and Brazil, the "Proposal for the
Establishment of a Development Agenda for WIPO" - from the Geneva Declaration
on the Future of the World Intellectual Property Organization. This proposal was
well supported by developing countries. The agreed "WIPO Development Agenda" was
the culmination of a long process of transformation for the organization from
one that had historically been primarily aimed at protecting the interests of
rightholders, to one that has increasingly incorporated the interests
of other stakeholders in the international intellectual property
system as well as integrating into the broader corpus of international law on
human rights, environment and economic cooperation.
A number of civil society bodies have been working on a draft Access to
Knowledge treaty which they would like to see introduced.
In December 2011, WIPO published its first World Intellectual Property Report
on the Changing Face of Innovation, the first such report of the new Office of
the Chief Economist. WIPO is also a co-publisher of the Global Innovation
Index. Information network
WIPO has established WIPOnet, a global information network. The project seeks
to link over 300 intellectual property offices in all WIPO Member States. In
addition to providing a means of secure communication among all connected
parties, WIPOnet is the foundation for WIPO's intellectual property services.
Director-Generals 1st: Georg Bodenhausen, 1970–1973
2nd: Árpád Bogsch, 1973–1997 3rd: Kamil Idris, 1997–2008
4th: Francis Gurry, 2008–present See also
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement List of parties to international
copyright agreements Member states of the World Intellectual
Property Organization Substantive Patent Law Treaty
Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy
United States and the United Nations World Intellectual Property Day
World Intellectual Property Organization treaties
World Intellectual Wealth Organisation References
External links Official website
List of member states