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Guide to WIPO Mediation
Mediation has proved very successful in achieving a result beneficial to both sides to a dispute. This booklet provides a straightforward introduction to mediation, based on the extensive experience of the WIPO Center. It describes the main features and advantages of mediation and explains how mediation under the WIPO Mediation Rules works in practice, with case examples.
Publication year: 2018
WIPO IP Facts and Figures 2018
An overview of intellectual property activity based on the latest available year of complete statistics.
Publication year: 2019
Innovation in the Polish health sector: A quality assessment
Economic Research Working Paper No. 47
This working paper aims to present the specifics of innovation in the Polish health industry through the prism of the experiences and opinions of a representative group of 42 companies from both the pharmaceutical and medtech sectors. Through analysis of in-depth interviews, it aims to illuminate the legal, economic and social mechanisms and phenomena that determine innovation in this sector. The survey examines which areas of the Polish health sector are most innovative, the understanding of innovation that prevails in the sector, and the characteristics of R&D activities carried out there. Subsequently, the study explores the general impact of intellectual property, and particularly of patent law on innovation, in the Polish health sector. Finally, it surveys the other economic and legal instruments currently stimulating innovation and how legal regulations and governmental policy could be modified to create an optimal pro-innovation environment. The conclusions include short legal and factual background of innovation in the Polish health sector, the summarized results of the conducted analysis and final comments concerning the level and culture of innovation within the examined industry.
WIPO Magazine, Issue 6/2018 (December)
The WIPO Magazine explores intellectual property, creativity and innovation in action across the world.
Immigrants' Contribution to Innovativeness: Evidence from a Non-Selective Immigration Country
Economic Research Working Paper No. 52
The economic consequences of migration are hotly debated and a main topic of recent political movements across Europe. We analyze Polish immigration in the context of the 2004 enlargement of the European Union and find a positive and significant spillover effect of the immigrants on the number of local inventors in German counties in 2001-2010. For causal identification, we exploit a historical episode in the Polish migration history to Germany before the fall of the Iron Curtain and construct a shift-share instrument. Our results differ from findings for high-skilled migration to the United States, which is particularly interesting as Polish immigration to Germany was not based on selection by qualification in our period of analysis.
Submarine Trademarks
Economic Research Working Paper No. 51
Companies use trademarks to protect their brands from outright imitation or competition by confusingly similar products. However, publication of trademark filings by the trademark office discloses information about a firm's new product or service. This creates a trade-off between legal protection and disclosure of information. We analyze the trade-off through the lens of “submarine trademarks” in the U.S. – submarine trademarks are trademarks whose publication and hence disclosure to the public is strategically delayed. This is achieved through a particular international filing strategy that is often combined with the use of shell companies to further conceal the trademark filing. These submarine strategies allow companies to benefit from legal trademark protection while reducing the risk of inadvertent disclosure of information. We provide the first systematic evidence of submarine trademarks and explore both their determinants and their effectiveness in reducing the disclosure of information.
Spreading the message, building respect
This brochure highlights a few of the tools we produce to raise awareness about key intellectual property issues, from outreach publications for children to support communications campaigns by IP offices.
Unpacking predictors of income and income satisfaction for artists
Economic Research Working Paper No. 50
The stereotype of the “starving artist” is pervasive in modern Western culture, but previous research on artists and income is mixed. The goal of this study is to explore how several demographic variables, along with self-reported behaviors and artistic activities associated with non-monetary and monetary motivators, predict income and income satisfaction for artists.Using unique survey data on current working artists in the United States, we provide empirical evidence on substantial reputational rewards and rewards from altruistic behaviors as important sources of artists' utility and, arguably, sources of their motivation to create new works. Moreover, we find that the evidence on “procedural” utility from working in the arts is less straightforward, and we find that many artists are pooling and diversifying financial risks on household levels. Overall, quantitative findings indicate that artists may have different criteria and conceptualizations when it comes to income, and they may derive value from their work in a variety of ways aside from income.
Creators' Income Situation in the Digital Age
Economic Research Working Paper No. 49
The digital transformation imposes both opportunities and risks for creativity and for creative employment, with implications for trends in income levels and the distribution of income. First, we consider skill-biased technological change as a determinant of income and labor market outcomes in the arts. Arguably, the IT revolution has changed the demand for certain skills, with creative occupations being more in demand than general employment. Second, we consider declines in the costs of generating new works and artistic experimentation due to digital technologies, and their effect on the barriers to entry in labor markets. Third, we touch upon the rise of online contract labor in certain creative professions as a determinant of income. Here, online platforms can change creators' access to work opportunities and it may alter the way income is distributed. We find that wage trends for creative workers in the digital age outperform general trends in the population: based on various data sources and various ways to identify creators, we see creators losing less or even gaining a better income position in relative terms. From a policy perspective, results do not lend support to the idea that creators' income situation has systematically worsened with the rise of the internet and its intermediaries. Evidence on changing distributions of income is ambiguous as trends differ from one country to the next.
Documenting Traditional Knowledge – A Toolkit
There is growing interest in documenting the wealth of traditional knowledge (TK) that has been developed by indigenous peoples and local communities around the world. But documenting TK can raise important issues, especially as regards intellectual property. This Toolkit presents a range of easy-to-use checklists and other resources to help ensure that anyone considering a documentation project can address those issues effectively.
Publication year: 2017