WIPO

WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, is the specialised agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting the protection of intellectual property worldwide. Created by the Stockholm Convention of 1967 and based in Geneva, WIPO administers most of the international treaties in the field and manages the registration systems that allow protection to be obtained in many countries through a single procedure. Its official website is wipo.int.

The treaties administered by WIPO

First, the founding conventions: the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Second, the treaties organising centralised procedures: the PCT for patents, the Madrid system for trade marks, the Hague system for designs and the Lisbon system for appellations of origin. Third, more recent substantive treaties, such as the Patent Law Treaty or the treaties on copyright in the digital environment. The TRIPS Agreement, by contrast, belongs to the World Trade Organization.

WIPO services for companies

WIPO offers applicants operational tools: international filing of patent, trade mark and design applications, public databases such as Patentscope and the Global Brand Database, international classifications and statistics. Its Arbitration and Mediation Center offers procedures for resolving intellectual property disputes and administers the procedures relating to domain names. These services complement those of the national and regional offices, such as the INPI and the European Patent Office.

Key points

In practice, a company encounters WIPO at every international extension of its protection and in domain name disputes. The procedures it administers always result in national or regional titles, whose validity and infringement are assessed under the law of each country. The firm acts in these procedures and in the disputes arising from them, as part of its patent law and intellectual property practice.