WIPO Assemblies Open
Geneva, September 25, 2006
Press Releases PR/2006/457
The meetings of the Assemblies of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which bring together WIPO’s 183 member states, opened on Monday with emphasis by the Director General, Dr. Kamil Idris, on the Organization’s commitment to inclusion and excellence in the provision of intellectual property services. The meetings, which run from September 25 to October 3, 2006, will take stock of progress in the Organization’s work and discuss future policy directions. Dr. Idris urged delegates to work together in a spirit of “goodwill, commitment and cooperation.”
In his opening remarks, Dr. Idris, focused on the theme of inclusion and the wide ranging initiatives spearheaded in recent years to achieve this end. He said “if I had to sum up in one word what I have been working to achieve since the beginning, and will continue to pursue as an objective of this Organization, that would be “inclusion”.
Dr. Idris, who took over leadership of the Organization in November 1997, said “As a global body encouraging creativity and innovation as well as a market-oriented provider of services for a demanding cross-section of users, WIPO’s constituency is wide. Our goal has been to ensure that the totality of that constituency is included in the drive to help identify, protect and use intellectual assets. Inclusion brings empowerment which is, I believe, a central goal of our work.” The Director General said the Organization’s efforts to communicate with and reach-out to existing and new partners had resulted in “an expanded cast of actors on the IP stage, contributing to an increased sense of inclusion and purpose at the global level.”
He referred, in particular, to the drive to respond to the demands of member states in all aspects of the Organization’s work and the introduction of new mechanisms to enhance “open and in-depth dialogue.” He also referred to the “sweeping changes” that had been instituted within the secretariat at the administrative and organization levels. In particular, he pointed to the strategic, results-based program and budget, allied to an enhanced, annual program performance report, with performance indicators; an office of the financial controller, bolstered by enhanced audit and oversight functions; and reinforced procurement procedures. Dr. Idris said, “These changes threw a spotlight on the secretariat’s accountability to you and also sought to help you fulfill your own responsibility to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the secretariat’s activities.”
The Director General also referred to the “overarching drive for inclusion” in the substance of the organization’s work. He outlined various initiatives to address the specific needs of individual member states, of certain groups of countries and of the user community and noted that the Organization’s openness to dialogue had borne many fruits. The initiatives included the implementation of nationally focused action plans aimed at capacity building and office automation, the establishment of the Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda, and the setting up of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC). In the field of copyright, Dr. Idris said work is moving forward on several fronts, citing the recommendation before the General Assembly to convene a diplomatic conference on the protection of broadcasting organizations as the most recent advance.
Regarding the provision of intellectual property services, the Director General said that “Great efforts have … been made to make filing and registration easier, cheaper and more efficient for users of WIPO services. He said “the continued and strong increase in PCT use is a reflection of the user community’s confidence in the system and a recognition of its efficiency and cost effectiveness (since 1997, for example, fees under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) have been reduced by some 45 per cent); and in 2004, a fee reduction of 75 per cent was extended to applicants from least developed countries (LDCs)). The last biennium saw an increase in PCT filings of more than 14 per cent over the previous biennium, as well as an upsurge of activity from developing countries, with a 46 per cent increase in filings in that period over the previous biennium.”
He said, “the push towards inclusion is also seen in the trademark area, with such positive recent developments as the introduction of a 90 per cent fee reduction for LDCs under the Madrid system; the introduction of a weekly, electronic edition of the WIPO Gazette of International Marks; and a new service allowing on-line renewal of international registrations, all of which further reduce costs and increase efficiency.” Dr. Idris noted that use of the Madrid system for the international registration of trademarks had enjoyed a “34 per cent increase in registrations in the last biennium over the previous one.”
Dr. Idris also referred to the work of the Arbitration and Mediation Center which had evolved into a “leading global provider” of speedy and cost-effective services to resolve domain-name conflicts through the application of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). He noted that the Center “has dealt with parties from some 131 countries and handled over 9,000 cases since the first case was filed in December 1999.” He also pointed to substantial progress in public outreach efforts and in creating broader awareness of intellectual property among the general public.
Dr. Idris said that over the past nine years, “WIPO has grown immensely in size and greatly expanded the substance it deals with.” He said, “after these productive years of foundation-laying and building, it is time to consolidate and unify our activities to reap the benefits of these investments for the future. To do so, we must be clear about our common priorities and goals and also supportive of our individual needs and specific problems and constraints. We must pool our strengths and ambitions and work towards clear, well-defined objectives, with confidence and enthusiasm.” Dr. Idris urged member states to conduct their work in a spirit of “goodwill, commitment and cooperation.” He appealed to delegates to show understanding, preserve the multilateral dialogue, to keep channels of communication open at all times and to be ready to compromise so that all member states could gain from the process and make it possible to achieve “win-win” solutions.
In concluding, Dr. Idris said, “this Organization has crafted programs of benefit to all nations, it is a world-class provider of intellectual property services and the main global IP norm-setting body. It must seek not only to maintain but to advance and strengthen that position and to inspire for future generations a genuine, inclusive, well-grounded intellectual property culture.”
At the opening session of the meeting, the Chairman of the WIPO General Assembly, Ambassador Enrique Manalo, Permanent Representative of the Philippines to the United Nations in Geneva, thanked member states for entrusting him with the chairmanship of the General Assembly for the second time. He said that he would make every attempt to conduct the meetings in a fair, open and inclusive manner and also urged member states to work in a spirit of “openness and cooperation.” He thanked WIPO Director General, Dr. Kamil Idris and the WIPO secretariat for their support in the past year. He said that he looked forward to fruitful discussions and deliberations leading to the successful conclusion of the meeting.
The agenda of the Assemblies, as well as relevant documents, are available at https://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=11023.
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