World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is one of the 16 specialized agencies of the United Nations. WIPO was created in 1967 "to encourage creative activity, to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world."

WIPO currently has 184 member states, administers 24 international treaties and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The current Director-General of WIPO is Francis Gurry , who took office on October 1, 2008^.183 of the UM Members as well as the Holy see are Members of WIPO. 

Non-members are the states of Cook Islands, Kiribati, Marsall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and the states with the limited  recognition. Palestine has observer status.

 The predecessor to WIPO was the BIRPI (Bureaux Internationaux Réunis pour la Protection de la Propriété Intellectuelle, French acronym for United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property), which had been established in 1893 to administer the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industry Property.

WIPO was formally created by the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property  Organization, which entered into force on April 26, 1970. Under Article 3 of this Convention, WIPO seeks to "promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world." WIPO became a specialized agency of the UN in 1974. The Agreement between the United Nations and the World Intellectual Property Organization notes in Article 2 that WIPO is responsible

"for promoting creative intellectual activity and for facilitating the transfer of technology related to industrial property to the developing countries in order to accelerate economic, social and cultural development, subject to the competence and responsibilities of the United Nations and its organs, particularly the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, as well as of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and of other agencies within the United Nations system."

The Agreement marked a transition for WIPO from the mandate it inherited in 1967 from BIRPI, to promote the protection of intellectual property, to one that involved the more complex task of promoting technology transfer and economic development.

Unlike other branches of the United Nations, WIPO has significant financial resources independent of the contributions from its Member States. In 2006, over 90% of its income of just over CHF 250 million  was expected to be generated from the collection of fees by the International Bureau (IB) under the intellectual property application and registration systems which it administers (the Patent Cooperation Treaty the Madrid system for trade marks and the Hague system for industrial designs?. For more information please visit official webiste at here  WIPO

Source : Wikipedia

How Copyrights And Patents Affect Your E-Biz

You may not realize it, but you deal with intellectual property (IP) every day. If you own a web site, that web site is your intellectual property. The way you deal with IP — yours and others — can directly impact the success of your business.

What’s Intellectual Property?
Registered patent attorney Patricia McQueeney (http://BrinkleyMcNerney.com) explains, “Intellectual property can be broken down into four types: patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets.”

• A patent deals with a completely new invention — a useful item, a novel look on an already-existing item, or a new plant species. Depending on the type of patent, they’re good for between fourteen and twenty years. The scope of a patent is defined by its claims. A claim is only one sentence but it may go on for pages, which is why it’s best to hire an experienced patent attorney.

• Copyrights protect creative expression — books, web sites, songs. There is such a thing as common law copyright, which means that you have rights when you create something. The difficulty lies in proving you were first to create it.

For only $30 you can register with the U.S. Copyright Office (http://www.copyright.gov). The forms aren’t complicated, and you have a lot more protection in an infringement suit. The copyright is good for your lifetime and seventy years after you die, and you can make it assignable to anyone upon your death.

Copyrights don’t protect the information found in a book or on a web site, but they protect the lay-out and presentation. For web sites, registering your first and last twenty-five pages of code protects the code for your entire web site and the creative expression of your display screens.

• A trademark designates an object’s source — it’s a mark or name associated with quality. In trade mark law, arbitrary names are encouraged — Kodak, Kleenex, Apple.The less your trademark describes your product, the stronger it is. If you sell film, using “Film” as a trademark won’t hold up in court. Again there are common law trademarks, but they’re hard to prove and offer less protection than a state or federal trademark (http://www.uspto.gov).

• Trade secrets are governed by state laws and vary from state to state. They encompass a variety of things from formulas (think “Coke”) to customer lists to product sources. Many companies have contracts that expressly prohibit their employees and vendors from giving away any information they’re exposed to while doing business with them. Commonly known facts aren’t considered trade secrets so it’s good to be discreet with your valuable information.

Get It In Writing
It’s important to remember that copyrights and patents give rights to the person who comes up with the idea, not the company that employs them. So if you hire someone to design your web site, the creator owns it unless you have the copyright assigned to you in writing. That’s why many business owners state in their employee agreements that any works or useful inventions created on company time with company funds will be assigned to the company. Cautions McQueeney, “You don’t own it unless you get it written over to you.”

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Isnare : Chris Malta & Robin Cowie