World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

WIPO aims to support the protection of industrial property, namely inventions, trademarks and designs, as well as materials protected by copyright, namely literary, musical, photographic and other works from around the world. The organization was founded by an agreement signed in Stockholm in 1967. It began operating in 1970 and became a special agency of the United Nations in December 1974. Its headquarters are in Geneva. WIPO's beginnings date back to 1883, when 14 countries signed the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, which created intellectual property protection for inventions, trademarks and industrial designs. The convention helped inventors obtain protection for their work outside their country of origin. In 1886, the Berne Convention obliged member countries to automatically protect works produced in other member countries.The two organizations that established separate secretariats to enforce their respective treaties merged in 1893 and became the International Bureau for the Protection of Intellectual Property (BIRPI) based in Berne, Switzerland. In 1960 BIRPI led its headquarters to Geneva. The main objective of WIPO is to promote the protection of intellectual property through international cooperation. The organization currently manages more than 20 intellectual property treaties. Secondly, control of administrative cooperation between Paris, Berne and other intellectual associations in the field of agreements concerning trademarks, patents and the protection of artistic and literary works. WIPO's role in enforcing intellectual property protection increased in the mid-1990s, when it signed a cooperation agreement with the World Trade Organization. As electronic commerce developed with the development of the Internet, WIPO was required to help resolve disputes regarding the use of Internet domain names. WIPO’s membership involves more than 180 countries.

WIPO — EPHEMERAL CHRONICLE

WIPO has a long and interesting past.Following glance at some of the key milestones in the Organization's history.

• Paris Convention (1883) – The Paris Convention was created to protect industrial property. This agreement was the first important step that helped creators protecting their intellectual works in other countries. The need for international protection of intellectual property became evident when foreign exhibitors refused to participate in the International Exhibition of Inventions in Vienna, Austria in 1873, because they feared that their ideas would be stolen and used commercially in other countries. The Paris Convention covers patents (inventions), trademarks and industrial designs.
• Madrid Agreement –  The implementation of the Madrid Agreement launched the first international application for intellectual property, which was the Madrid international registration system. In addition, a full range of international IP services has emerged under the auspices of what will become WIPO.
• United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property (BIRPI) – The two secretariats set up to administer the Paris and Berne Conventions combine to form WIPO's immediate forerunner BIRPI. This Convention established WIPO or it can be said that BIRPI is thus transformed to become WIPO. 
• WIPO amalgamation with United Nations (UN) – WIPO joins the family of United Nations organizations and becomes a specialized agency of the United Nations. All UN member states are allowed to become members of specialized agencies, although this is not mandatory. 
• Patent Cooperation Treaty (1978) –  Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is amalgamated procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting states. The PCT expanded briskly to become WIPO’s largest international IP filing system today. 

WIPO LEX 

WIPO Lex is a global database that provides free of charge access to legal information on IP such as treaties administered by WIPO, other IP-related treaties, and laws and regulations of the Member States of WIPO, the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. WIPO provides WIPO Lex to smooth the progress of public access regarding information concerning IP laws, regulations and treaties. Every effort is made to provide trustworthy and up-to-date legal texts. The database provided in WIPO Lex is general in character. The official legal texts of WIPO Lex have multiple sources and could come from any of the following:

• Notifications from WIPO members in accordance with Art. 15 (2) of the Paris Convention and Art. 24 (2) of the Berne Convention, which states that Member States must provide the International Bureau of WIPO with all new regulations and official texts concerning the protection of industrial property and copyright, which must collect and publish these information. 
• Notifications to WTO members in accordance with art. Section 63.2 of the TRIPS Agreement, which requires WTO members to submit their intellectual property laws to the TRIPS Council. 
• Direct transmission of intellectual property laws and regulations from national intellectual property offices. 
• Websites of national intellectual property offices, governments and organizations. 
• Reliable and third party legal databases that have obtained permission to reproduce texts from WIPO Lex in cases where prior consent is required. 
• Users should be aware that only official documents in the national language are legally binding and that the translations are correct. All radio transcripts transmitted by WIPO Lex are returned from the public domain or translated by WIPO or clarified by Member States to the WTO and WIPO provided by government agencies or organizations and permission to publish documents, as long as the source is authorized. A full overview of the compilation is available on the topics identified in the individual copyright notices for each article in the national literature.