Dr. Francis Gurry, a national of Australia, is Assistant Director General and the Legal Counsel of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, where he is responsible for WIPO's activities in relation to patents, including the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center, traditional knowledge and genetic resources, as well as for international legal and constitutional questions.
Before joining WIPO in 1985, he practiced as an attorney in Melbourne and Sydney and also taught law at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of a textbook on the law of trade secrets and confidential information, entitled Breach of Confidence, published by Oxford University Press in the United Kingdom in 1984 and re-printed in 1990, and co-author, with Frederick Abbott and Thomas Cottier, of The International Intellectual Property System: Commentary and Materials, published by Kluwer in 1999.