WIPO Director General Francis Gurry welcomed on Friday the adoption of the Global Framework for Climate Services to strengthen production, availability, delivery and application of science-based climate predictions, information and services and underscored the contribution that intellectual property can make in mitigating the climate change.
An international symposium in Geneva on September 17 and 18, 2009 will address the need to improve the interface between national intellectual property (IP) systems to overcome operational inefficiencies arising largely from growing demand for IP rights. The event will foster public-private dialogue and aims to strengthen ties between IP service providers (national IP authorities) and their clients (industry), to highlight the concerns of the user community and the need to re-engineer IP systems to reduce bottlenecks which are slowing the pace of innovation that is key to economic growth.
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have joined ranks to offer a Master of Intellectual Property Law program from February 2010. This program was launched by the WIPO Director General, Mr. Francis Gurry, Director General of IP Australia, Mr. Philip Noonan, and Executive Dean of QUT’s Faculty of Law, Professor Michael Lavarch, in Brisbane on August 5, 2009.
In a community ceremony, under the shade of an acacia tree, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) formally handed over digital recording equipment to Chief Kisio and other elders of the Maasai community, at Il Ngwesi, Laikipia, Kenya to assist the Maasai people in preserving and documenting their rich cultural heritage. Some 200 members of the community participated in the ceremony in late July.
At a meeting on July 28, 2009, WIPO Director General, Mr. Francis Gurry and the Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Hsien Loong, discussed issues relating to Asia’s growing importance in the international intellectual property system, WIPO’s capacity building activities in the South East Asian region, climate change and the role of intellectual property, and the role of balanced national intellectual property regimes in promoting development and growth. The Director General and the Prime Minister emphasized the fruitful cooperation between WIPO and Singapore, as evidenced by the recent strengthening of the WIPO Singapore Office.
An agreement signed by Mr. Francis Gurry, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and Mr. K Shanmugam, Minister for Law and Second Minister for Home Affairs, has paved the way for the establishment of the Singapore Office of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (WIPO Center), which will officially open in January 2010. (Please refer to “Annex A” for a fact sheet on the WIPO Center.)
Ministers from least-developed countries (LDCs), senior government officials and heads of regional intellectual property (IP) organizations reaffirmed their commitment to integrating intellectual property (IP) and innovation strategies into their national development planning during a High Level Forum on the Strategic Use of Intellectual Property for Prosperity and Development organized by WIPO on July 23 and 24, 2009. The ministers also discussed the challenges facing LDCs in this area, in particular the difficulties for LDCs to obtain better access to technological information.
A new public-private partnership which aims to provide industrial property offices, universities and research institutes in least developed countries with free access and industrial property offices in certain developing countries with low cost access to selected online scientific and technical journals was launched at WIPO’s headquarters on July 23, 2009.
Ministers from least-developed countries (LDCs), senior government officials and heads of regional intellectual property (IP) organizations will meet in Geneva on July 23 and 24, 2009 to discuss IP policy implementation for wealth creation and development in these countries.
The WIPO Conference on Intellectual Property and Public Policy Issues wrapped up on July 14, 2009 with an acknowledgement of the ability of intellectual property (IP) to drive innovation, creativity and transfer of technology, while recognizing the need to ensure that the IP system produces social and economic benefit. Dialogue and collaboration between major stakeholders – international organizations, government, industry, and civil society – is necessary to address these questions.