The World I ntellectual P roperty O rganization (WIPO)

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
Viktoriia Muraviova
Nastassia Laktsiyonava
Palina Sivitskaya

services, policy, information and cooperation. We are a self-funding agency

of the United Nations, with 188 member states.
Our mission is to lead the development of a balanced and effective international intellectual property (IP) system that enables innovation and creativity for the benefit of all.

the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs;

and symbols, names and images used in commerce.

IP rules for a changing world;
global services to protect IP

across borders and to resolve disputes;
technical infrastructure to connect IP systems and share knowledge;
cooperation and capacity-building programs to enable all countries to use IP for economic, social and cultural development;
a world reference source for IP information

Rights (TRIPS) is an international agreement administered by the World

Trade Organization (WTO) that sets down minimum standards for many forms of intellectual property (IP) regulation as applied to nationals of other WTO Members.
The TRIPS agreement introduced intellectual property law into the international trading system for the first time and remains the most comprehensive international agreement on intellectual property to date.

Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

(GATT) in 1994
After the Uruguay round, the GATT became the basis for the establishment of the World Trade Orgnization. Because ratification of TRIPS is a compulsory requirement of World Trade Organization membership, any country seeking to obtain easy access to the numerous international markets opened by the World Trade Organization must enact the strict intellectual property laws mandated by TRIPS. For this reason, TRIPS is the most important multilateral instrument for the globalization of intellectual property laws.

strong protection for intellectual property rights. For example, under TRIPS:

Copyright terms must extend at least 20 years, unless based on the life of the author.
Copyright must be granted automatically, and not based upon any "formality," such as registrations, as specified in the Berne Convention.
Computer programs must be regarded as "literary works" under copyright law and receive the same terms of protection.

as "fair use" in the United States) are constrained by

the Berne three-step test
Patents must be granted for "inventions" in all "fields of technology" provided they meet all other patentability requirements (although exceptions for certain public interests are allowed and must be enforceable for at least 20 years.
Exceptions to exclusive rights must be limited, provided that a normal exploitation of the work and normal exploitation of the patent is not in conflict.

interests of the right holders of computer programs and patents

is allowed.
Legitimate interests of third parties have to be taken into account by patent rights.
In each state, intellectual property laws may not offer any benefits to local citizens which are not available to citizens of other TRIPS signatories under the principle of national treatment (with certain limited exceptions).TRIPS also has a most favored nation clause.

all member states, however developing countries were allowed extra time

to implement the applicable changes to their national laws, in two tiers of transition according to their level of development.

laws to protect Digital Rights Management systems. This was achieved

through the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (WIPO Treaty) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.
More stringent restrictions on compulsory licenses for patents.
More aggressive patent enforcement. This effort has been observed more broadly in proposals for WIPO and European Union rules on intellectual property enforcement. The 2001 EU Copyright Directive was to implement the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty.
The campaign for the creation of a WIPO Broadcasting Treaty that would give broadcasters (and possibly webcasters) exclusive rights over the copies of works they have distributed.

level of criticism from developing countries, academics, and non-governmental organizations.

Some of this criticism is against the WTO as a whole, but many advocates of trade liberalization also regard TRIPS as bad policy. TRIPS's wealth concentration effects (moving money from people in developing countries to copyright and patent owners in developed countries) and its imposition of artificial scarcity on the citizens of countries that would otherwise have had weaker intellectual property laws, are common bases for such criticisms.