World Intellectual Property Organization

Summary of World Intellectual Property Organization

A specialized agency of the United Nations charged with fostering international agreements to protect rights to intellectual property, with the object of facilitating international technology transfer. WIPO serves as the nucleus for new international agreements relating to patents, trademarks, copyrights, and related areas, and promotes wider acceptance of existing agreements. In addition, WIPO aids developing countries in establishing local laws and agencies to protect and promote intellectual property.

Legal Materials

WIPO is an agency of the United Nations “responsible for the promotion of the protection of intellectual property throughout the world through cooperation among States, and for the administration of various multilateral treaties dealing with the legal and administrative aspects of intellectual property.”

WIPO posts most of the relevant related materials including treaties treaties, domain name decisions and a WIPO patent search.

Lexis has WIPO Administrative Panel Decisions concerning Internet domain name disputes from January 2000 (TRDMRK;UDRP).

Agreements

WIPO administers the following international agreements:

Industrial property. Paris Convention (read this and related legal terms for further details) for the Protection of Industrial Property; Madrid Agreement For The Repression Of False Or Deceptive Indications Of Source On Goods (read this and related legal terms for further details); Madrid Agreement Concerning The International Registration Of Marks (read this and related legal terms for further details); The Hague Agreement (read this and related legal terms for further details) Concerning the International Deposit of Industrial Designs; Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks; Lisbon Agreement For The Protection Of Appellations Of Origin And Their International Registration (read this and related legal terms for further details); Locarno Agreement Establishing an International Classification for Industrial Designs; Patent Cooperation Treaty (read this and related legal terms for further details); International Patent Classification Agreement (read this and related legal terms for further details); Trademark Registration Treaty (read this and related legal terms for further details); Vienna Agreement Establishing an International Classification of the Figurative Elements of Marks: Vienna Agreement for the Protection of Type Faces and their International Deposit; Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure; Geneva Treaty on the International Recording of Scientific Discoveries; Nairobi Treaty On The Protection Of The Olympic Symbol (read this and related legal terms for further details).

Copyrights and related rights. Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works; Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations; Geneva Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms; Brussels Convention Relating to the Distribution of Programme-Carrying Signals Transmitted by Satellite; Madrid Multilateral Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation of Copyright Royalties.

The secretariat of WIPO is located in Geneva. The following states were members on April 30, 1984:

• Algeria
• Argentina
• Australia
• Austria
• Bahamas
• Barbados
• Belgium
• Benin
• Brazil
• Bulgaria
• Burundi
• Byelorussian SSR
• Cameroon
• Canada
• Central African Republic
• Chad
• Chile
• China
• Colombia
• Congo
• Costa Rica
• Czechoslovakia
• Denmark
• Egypt
• ElSavador
• Fiji
• Finland
• France
• Gabon
• Gambia
• German Democratic Republic
• German Federal Republic
• Ghana
• Greece
• Guatemala
• Guinea
• Honduras
• Hungary
• India
• Indonesia
• Iraq
• Ireland
• Israel
• Italy
• Ivory Coast
• Jamaica
• Japan
• Jordan
• Kenya
• Korea (North)
• Korea (South)
• Libya
• Liechtenstein
• Luxembourg
• Malawi
• Mali
• Malta
• Mauritania
• Mauritius
• Mexico
• Monaco
• Mongolia
• Morocco
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Niger
• Norway
• Pakistan
• Panama
• Peru
• Philippines
• Poland
• Portugal
• Qatar
• Turkey
• U.S.S.R.
• Uganda
• Ukrainian SSR
• United Arab Emirates
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Upper Volta
• Uruguay
• Vietnam
• Yemen
• Yugoslavia
• Zaire
• Zambia
• Zimbabwe

(Main Author: William J. Miller)

World Intellectual Property Organization

Embracing mainstream international law, this section on world intellectual property organization explores the context, history and effect of the area of the law covered here.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

This section provides an overview of world intellectual property organization (wipo) within the legal context of Intellectual Property Institutions in international economic law, with coverage of Architecture.

Resources

See Also

• International Organization
• Foreign Relations
• Organization
• United Nations
• United Nations System
• UN Agency

Resources

Further Reading

• Holger Hestermeyer, “World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO),” Elgar Encyclopedia of International Economic Law, Cheltenham Glos (United Kingdom), Northampton, MA (United States)

Resources

Further Reading

• The entry “world intellectual property organization” in the Parry and Grant Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law (currently, the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law, 2009), Oxford University Press

Resources

See Also

Copyrights
Patent Cooperation Treaty
Patents – Foreign
Patents – U.S.
Trademarks

Further Reading

• A concise encyclopedia of the United Nations (including World Intellectual Property Organization , H Volger, KA Annan -2010)
• The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations (TG Weiss – 2007)
• International Law: A Dictionary (including World Intellectual Property Organization , Boczek, Boleslaw Adam -2005)

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in relation with International Trade

In the context of trade organizations, Christopher Mark (1993) provided the following definition of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO): A specialized agency of the United Nations dealing with legal and administrative aspects of intellectual property — such as copyrights, patents, and trademarks –and seeking to promote international cooperation in the protection of intellectual property rights (Sec. I). Among its treaties and agreements, WIPO administers the International Union for the Protection of Industrial Property (the Paris Union) formed to reduce discrimination in national patent practices, and the International Union for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (theBerne Union) formed to reduce discrimination in national copyright laws. WIPO is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.