WIPO Director General Expresses Condolences on Passing of Dr. Árpád Bogsch
Geneva, September 21, 2004
Press Releases PR/2004/389
The Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Dr. Kamil Idris, expressed his sincere condolences on the passing of Dr. Árpád Bogsch on September 19, 2004, former Director General of WIPO and Secretary General of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) for 24 years and a man who marked the international intellectual property landscape in an unprecedented way. Dr. Idris paid tribute to Dr. Bogsch whom he described as the father of the modern intellectual property system.
Speaking on Tuesday, September 21, 2004 to WIPO staff, who observed a moment's silence in Dr. Bogsch's memory, Dr. Idris said "Dr. Bogsch was not only the founder of this Organization but also the crafter, the creator of the modern intellectual property system."
Paying tribute to the former Director General, Dr. Idris said "Dr. Bogsch was a rare thinker, a statesman and a man of integrity," adding "his contributions to humanity, to knowledge, to science and technology, are beyond the description of words."
Dr. Bogsch, born in 1919 in Hungary, began his professional career in 1942 as an attorney in Budapest. In 1948, he moved to Paris as a legal officer at United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Copyright Division. In 1954 he took up a post as legal counsellor at the U.S Copyright Office in Washington, D.C. and became an American citizen in 1959. Dr. Bogsch's long-standing career with WIPO began in 1963 when he was appointed as first Deputy Director General of the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property (BIRPI, which was the predecessor organization of WIPO). He was the first Deputy Director General of WIPO from 1970 to 1973 and in 1973 became the second Director General of WIPO and Secretary General of UPOV.
At a farewell reception for Dr. Bogsch in 1997, Dr. Idris paid tribute to his predecessor describing how from a small organization with a modest secretariat, WIPO had risen under Dr. Bogsch to become an internationally respected agency of the United Nations.
During his tenure at WIPO, Dr. Bogsch left a lasting legacy. He oversaw the transformation of BIRPI into WIPO and its entry into the UN family of organizations, a significant increase in the number of member states and staff, and the proliferation of multiple working languages. Dr. Bogsch also oversaw the growth of UPOV into a relevant organization protecting breeder's rights. The former Director General also bolstered WIPO's work in technical assistance to developing countries, in addition to providing a number of valuable services to the private sector for the international filing and registration of patents, trademarks and designs.
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