A new WIPO report monitoring recent trends in intellectual property (IP) activity shows that demand for IP rights continued to increase prior to the onset of the global economic crisis, with 1.85 million patent (+3.7% increase over 2006), almost 3.3 million trademark (+1.6%) and approximately 0.62 million industrial design (+15.3%) applications filed worldwide in 2007. The report, World Intellectual Property Indicators 2009 , points to a slowdown in demand for IP rights in 2008 (based on preliminary figures ), when the global economy experienced a sharp decline. The report also documents an increased level of unprocessed (pending) patent applications, reaching 4.2 million applications in 2007.
For the first time, the annual meetings of WIPO member states will begin with a two-day high-level ministerial segment reflecting the importance of intellectual property (IP) in senior policy-making spheres. The high-level segment on September 22 and 23, 2009 will bring together over forty ministers who will address national IP priorities.
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.