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The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations. WIPO was created in 1967 with the stated purpose of encouraging creative activity and promoting the protection of intellectual property throughout the world. Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, signed at Stockholm on July 14 1967, Preamble, second paragraph.
WIPO currently has 183 member states, List of members states of WIPO administers 23 international treaties Treates administered by WIPO, and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The current Director-General of WIPO is Kamil Idris.
History
The predecessor to WIPO was the BIRPI (Bureaux Internationaux Réunis pour la Protection de la Propriété Intellectuelle, French acronym for United International Bureau for the Protection of Intellectual Property), which had been set up 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 (Signed at Stockholm on July 14, 1967 and as amended on September 28 1979). 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, as above-mentioned.
Unlike other branches of the United Nations, WIPO has significant financial resources independent of the contributions from its Member States. In 2006, over 90% of its income of around CHF500m is expected to be generated from the collection of fees by the International Bureau (IB) under the intellectual property application and registration systems which it administers (the Patent Cooperation Treaty, the Madrid system for trade marks and the Hague system for industrial designs).
Critique
As with all United Nations multi-government forums, WIPO is not an elected body. Some argue that WIPO does not therefore act in the interests of citizens as the representatives of its member states are either not democratic or are highly abstracted government agencies which are only lobbied effectively by major corporations. WIPO usually attempts to reach decisions by consensus, but in any vote, each Member State is entitled to one vote, regardless of population or contribution to the funding. This is important, because there is a significant North-South divide in the politics of intellectual property. During the 1960s and 1970s, developing nations were able to block expansions to intellectual property treaties, such as universal pharmaceutical patents which might have occurred through WIPO.
In the 1980s, this led to the United States "forum shifting" intellectual property standard-setting out of WIPO and into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which later evolved into the World Trade Organization, where the North had greater control of the agenda. This strategy paid dividends with the enactment of Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.
Much of the important work is done through committees, including for example the Standing Committee on Patents (SCP), the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), the Advisory Committee on Enforcement (ACE), and the Intergovernmental Committee (IGC) on Access to Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, and the Working Group on Reform of the Patent Cooperation Treaty.
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 Consumer Project on Technology web site, Geneva Declaration on the Future of the World Intellectual Property Organization. This proposal was well supported by developing countries, and by a large contingent of civil society. A number of civil society bodies have been working on a draft Access to Knowledge Consumer Project on Technology web site, ''Access to Knowledge (A2K), or A2K, Treaty which they would like to see introduced.
Notes
See also
- Budapest Treaty
- Geneva Declaration on the Future of the World Intellectual Property Organization
- Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property
- Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)
- Patent Law Treaty (PLT)
- Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT)
- Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy
- World Intellectual Wealth Organisation
- WIPO Copyright Treaty
- WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty
- World Intellectual Property Day (April 26)
External links
- The official WIPO website
- Critics of the WIPO: CPTech, IP Justice, EFF, FSFE, FFII, Union for the Public Domain, CPSR-Peru and many other NGOs
- May 10 2004, Geneva: WIPO Geneva Patent Policy Session
- 2003/2004: Wipo bangs the Drum - WIPO has just published a brochure, "Intellectual Property - A Power Tool for Economic Growth", aimed at policy-makers in businesses and governments worldwide, and as the preface puts it, "written from a definite perspective -- that IP is good".
- Substantive Patent Law Treaty(SPLT) Draft: Unlimited Patentability and Strict Limits on Patent Quality to be hardcoded into international law.
- 2003, Geneva: Background on WIPO Sisule F Musungu and Graham Dutfield, Multilateral agreements and a TRIPS-plus world: The World Intellectual Property Organisation
- World Trade Organization- works closely with WIPO
- TRIPS site. WTO's official Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights gateway.
- Intellectual Property Watch reports on all IP policy issues, specificallly the movments of WIPO
- IP Justice "an international civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property law" (from www.ipjustice.org)
- Intellectual Property Rights Experts Group group that "coordinates and undertakes the work related to Intellectual Property Rights" (from www.apecipeg.org)
Intellectual property organizations | International trade | United Nations specialized agencies
World Intellectual Property Organization | World Intellectual Property Organization | Παγκόσμιος Οργανισμός Διανοητικής Ιδιοκτησίας | Organización Mundial de la Propiedad Intelectual | Organisation mondiale de la propriété intellectuelle | World Intellectual Property Organization | WIPO | Organizaţia Mondială a Proprietăţii Intelectuale | World Intellectual Property Organization | Tổ chức sở hữu trí tuệ thế giới | 世界知识产权组织
"World Intellectual Property Organization"