The bimonthly WIPO Magazine (available in English, French and Spanish) aims to inform readers about WIPO-led activities, and to show intellectual property, creativity and innovation at work across the world.

What is WIPO?

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It is dedicated to developing a balanced and accessible international intellectual property (IP) system, which rewards creativity, stimulates innovation and contributes to economic development while safeguarding the public interest.

WIPO was established by the WIPO Convention in 1967 with a mandate from its Member States to promote the protection of IP throughout the world through cooperation among states and in collaboration with other international organizations. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland.

Book Review:
Understanding and Profiting from Intellectual Property
by Deli Yang
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan ISBN: 978-1-4039-9172-0
Price: £55

Ms Yang is currently Reader in International Business at Bradford University School of Management in the U.K., and subtitles her book A Guide for Practitioners and Analysts: she explains that the aim is to “investigate intellectual property in the context of international business,” so that business practitioners (including business managers and IP owners) and IP analysts (corporate analysts and academic researchers) may understand and benefit from IP.

Part I (“IP Fundamentals”) outlines the nature of the various types of IP, including both industrial property and copyright, as well as the systems, national and international, under which it operates. Part II (“IP Environments”) examines IP in the context of political economy, education and culture in developed and developing countries. The next part (“IP Management”) deals with the management of IP assets, personnel and products/services. The final part (“IP Strategies”) is possibly the most advisory, and goes into the global commercialization of IP, considering matters such as marketing concerns, contracting and licensing IP, combating piracy and counterfeiting and using the most suitable partnerships to maximize benefits from IP.

The author has undertaken a formidable task with serious scholarship (viz. her copious references to other works) and analytical intent – no less than the whole socio-economic and political scope of IP in the national and international business context. Her dilemma, as she realizes, is that, though analyze she must, her material does not always permit definitive judgments. She is commendably cautious about using an economist’s tools to extrapolate hard evidence, commenting that the use of empirical study to determine the effects of IP on foreign direct investment is hampered by “lack of data on international FDI flows and measurement standards, and the inadequacy of econometric models.” Such caution should also be extended to her direct comparison between the World Trade Organiztion’s perceived strength in its ability to enforce its dispute settlements and WIPO’s perceived weakness therein: their respective terms of reference and their corresponding structural and functional differences are such that WTO may enforce – but with the risks that greater political empowerment brings. ...

Download WIPO Magazine, August 2008

PDF format, 887KB, 27Pages.

    * Spectator Sports – Breaking Records in IP Revenues
    * Technology, Innovation and Grit: Faster, Higher, Stronger in Disabled Sports
    * Scoring Domain Name Wins at WIPO
    * Spotlights on Shanghai International Film Festival
    * Shedding Light on the Life Sciences: Patent Landscaping for Public Policymakers
    * OAPI Joins International Industrial Designs Treaty
    * International Home Decoration Market Beckons Africa’s Designers
    * IP and Business: How to successfully buy or sell a business with IP assets
    * Committee Meetings
    * Inter-Regional Forum on Development and Service-Oriented IP Administration
    * In the News
    * Letters and comment
    * Book Review: Understanding and Profiting from Intellectual Property by Deli Yang

Visit WIPO Official Website

NEW AT WIPO:

    * 2008 World Patent Report Confirms Increasing Internationalization of Innovative Activity. Increased patent filings in North East Asian countries (mainly China and the Republic of Korea) and in the US drove growth in worldwide filing of patent applications, which topped 1.76 million in 2006, representing a 4.9% increase over 2005, according to the 2008 edition of the WIPO World Patent Report.
    * SCT Examines Non-Traditional Marks, Trademark Opposition Procedures and Industrial Designs.Non-traditional marks, such as holograms and scent marks, trademark opposition procedures, and questions relating to the registration of industrial designs topped the agenda of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications (SCT), which met from July 21 to 25.
    * Next WIPO Director General is nominated.Mr. Francis Gurry, a national of Australia, was nominated by the WIPO Coordination Committee on May 13 to become the next Director General of WIPO. The candidate will have to be appointed by the WIPO General Assembly at its next meeting from September 22 to 30.
    * Development Agenda - Report of the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP).At its second meeting from July 7-11, the CDIP took forward its discussions of a work program for implementation of the recommendations approved by the General Assembly.
    * WIPO Committee agrees on future work on patents. Member states of the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP), meeting from June 23 to 26, began a comprehensive review of issues relating to the international patent system.

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