Posts in WIPO

‘IP That Works for All’: My Vision for the World Intellectual Property Organization

In the increasingly global environment, our creators, inventors and innovators have continued to lean on the shoulders of the of intellectual property (IP) system as the core of the emergent global knowledge economy and a guarantee for private reward and public welfare. The products of intellect have continued to face opportunities and challenges presented by rapid technological changes. With the…

WIPO Prepares to Elect New Director General

There are 10 candidates declared to succeed Francis Gurry as WIPO Director General, when he retires in September this year after serving two six-year terms. One of them will be nominated to be Director General by the WIPO Coordination Committee on March 5 and 6, before being formally appointed by the WIPO General Assembly. The Coordination Committee comprises 83 of WIPO’s 192 member states. The 10 candidates include eight men and two women. There are three candidates from Asia, three from Latin America, two from Africa, and one each from Europe and central Asia. There are no candidates from North America.

A Global Look at Post Grant Patent Maintenance Fees

A patent maintenance fee is an official fee that is payable at prescribed intervals to a national patent office over the lifecycle of a patent application or a granted patent, in order to keep the patent application or the granted patent in force in that particular jurisdiction. It is payable by an applicant or a patent owner (an assignee or a patentee, as the case may be). Patent maintenance fees are an integral part of the patenting process and may also be referred to as patent annuities, patent annuity fees, patent renewal fees, or patent annual fees. The failure to pay a patent maintenance fee could have serious and far-reaching consequences, including the patent application or the granted patent being treated as lapsed, withdrawn, or abandoned in that particular jurisdiction. In this article, we will delve into the patent maintenance fees in the jurisdictions in which the payment of said fees begins at the patent grant stage or patent issue stage, or are calculated from the date on which a patent is issued or granted.

EPO and UKIPO Refuse AI-Invented Patent Applications

The European Patent Office has refused two European patent applications that designated an artificial intelligence called DABUS as the inventor, following a non-public hearing on November 25, 2019. The applications are for a “food container” (number EP3564144) and “devices and methods for attracting enhanced attention” (number EP3563896). They were filed by the Artificial Inventor Project, which has so far filed patent applications for the inventions via the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Israel, China, Korea and Taiwan.

AUTM Foundation, Apio Innovation Transfer, Local Practitioners Hold First-Ever U.S.-India IPR Education Initiative

In 2019, the first-ever United States-India collaboration on intellectual property rights (IPR) education was launched. Program participants included entrepreneurs, students, and academic faculty. The initiative brought together multiple governments and agencies for a blending of ideas and priorities that elevated the experience for participants and advanced U.S.-India relations. The outcome was a sense of U.S.-India ‘team’ in collaboration to advance the cause of intellectual property education in India. The United States Consulate General Kolkata, India funded the creation of an IPR education initiative that included a series of webinars and a week-long series of summer workshops presented as the first United States-India Symposium on Intellectual Property Rights. Workshops focused on the value, importance, and use of IPR as a driver of economic success. The program was promoted within the practitioner, academic, and business community through email, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media including distribution channels of the local partners.

WIPO Report—Innovation Is Increasingly Collaborative and International

Innovative activity is more collaborative and transnational, but also focused on a few large clusters in a few countries. These are among the findings in the latest World Intellectual Property Report, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on November 12. The report focuses on the geography of innovation, using geocoding based on the addresses of inventors listed on patents and the locations of the authors of scientific articles and conference proceedings. The report found that, during the period 2015-2017, some 30 metropolitan hotspots accounted for more than two-thirds of all patents and nearly half of scientific activity. The top 10 hotspots worldwide are: San Francisco/San Jose, New York, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Boston, Shanghai, London, Beijing, Bengaluru and Paris. In the U.S., hotspots around New York, San Francisco and Boston accounted for about a quarter of all U.S. patents filed from 2011 to 2015.