WIPO Organized Meeting to Probe Electronic Commerce and Intellectual Property

Geneva, July 30, 2001
Media Alerts MA/2001/08

Representatives from industry, governments and the general public will meet in Geneva from September 19 to 21, 2001 to discuss recent and future commercial and technological developments in e-commerce and their impact on the intellectual property system.

The Conference, organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), will examine the principal impact of e-commerce on the intellectual property system, and will cover issues including creation, ownership, identity and governance on the Internet. Focus will be on music, films and publishing on-line, domain names, business methods patents, branding, rights management systems, privacy, digital cultural heritage, and the influence of new information technologies on intellectual property service delivery.

Speakers include government leaders and chief executives of major corporations involved in e-commerce. For details of the program and speakers see: http://ecommerce.wipo.int/meetings/2001/conference.

The Conference will be held at the International Conference Center of Geneva (CICG), 15 rue de Varembé, 1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland. The Conference is open for registration on-line via the web site.

The first such WIPO conference on e-commerce and intellectual property, held in September 1999, promoted better understanding of the relationship between e-commerce and the intellectual property system. It led to the launch of WIPO's Digital Agenda, a plan of action for adapting intellectual property to the digital age and to the adoption by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, an expedited system for resolving domain name disputes. It confirmed that intellectual property rights are of central importance in maintaining a stable environment for the future development of e-commerce.

For further information, please contact the Media Relations & Public Affairs Section at WIPO: Tel: + 41 22 338 8161 or 338 95 47; E-mail: publicinf@wipo.int.