WIPO Launches One-Stop Search & Reference Tool for IP Laws and Treaties

Geneva, September 20, 2010
PR/2010/659

WIPO launched on September 20, 2010 WIPO Lex, an on-line global intellectual property (IP) reference resource which provides up-to-date information on national IP laws and treaties. This centralized search facility, which offers a user-friendly interface and functionalities, is in line with one of the Organization’s strategic goals, namely to serve as a world reference source for IP information and analysis.

WIPO Lex currently features the complete IP legal texts for over 60 countries with substantial coverage for a further 100 legal systems. Consistent with the spirit of the Development Agenda, it also provides, especially for countries that do not yet have their own database of laws, an Internet platform to make available information concerning their respective IP legislation. 

“WIPO Lex offers easy and direct access to a rich source of general and member-state-specific legal information and is a valuable research tool for policy-makers, researchers, users of the IP system and the general public,” said WIPO Director General Francis Gurry. “WIPO Lex has enabled us, for the first time, to consolidate the IP laws of member states and IP treaties and to make them available in a detailed and fully searchable format.”

WIPO Lex further demonstrates the Organization’s commitment to narrowing the global knowledge gap by facilitating the free-flow of IP information globally, and by improving access to and use of IP information.  WIPO Lex will be integrated into WIPO GOLD which was launched earlier this year and provides quick and easy on-line access to a broad collection of searchable IP data and tools relating to, for example, technology, brands, designs, statistics, WIPO standards, and IP classification systems.