The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is an agency of the United Nations charged to promote INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY rights worldwide. Intellectual property rights are “works of the mind,” including inventions, designs, books, music, and films; TRADEMARKs, COPYRIGHTs, and PATENTs are all considered intellectual property. Protection of intellectual property is critical to stimulating research, development, and ENTREPRENEURSHIP. In a political/ economic system where others could usurp peoples’ (or businesses) new ideas with no compensation to the inventor, creativity and product improvement would be discouraged. WIPO administers over 20 intellectual-property treaties among the 177 signatory member states. The treaties can be grouped into three categories: intellectual-property protection, global protection systems, and classification. The first group of treaties defines internationally agreed basic standards of intellectual-property protection. The second group ensures that one international filing registration will have effect in any of the relevant signatory states, thereby simplifying and reducing the cost of registering intellectual property globally. The third group of treaties creates classification systems that organize information about intellectual property into indexed, manageable structures for easy retrieval. The WIPO evolved out of 19th-century industrialization. The need for international protection of intellectual property became evident when international exhibitors refused to attend the International Exhibition of Inventions in Vienna, Austria, in 1873, because inventors feared their ideas would be stolen. This led to the 1883 Paris Convention for Protection of Industrial Property, the first major international treaty to help protect inventions, trademarks, and industrial designs in other countries. Originally there were 14 member states to the Paris Convention. In 1886 the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works expanded international protection to copyrighted material. Like the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention set up an International Bureau to administer the agreement. Seven years later (1893), the two groups merged to create the United International Bureau for the Protection of Intellectual Property (best known by its French acronym BIRPI). In 1970, following the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, BIRPI became WIPO, and in 1974 it became an agency of the United Nations. One of the most visible and dynamic roles of the WIPO is overseeing protection of information technology and the INTERNET. The WIPO administers the Arbitration and Mediation Center, created to resolve intellectual property rights disputes. The Center maintains a list of specialized mediators and arbitrators from more than 70 countries, who conduct dispute resolution according to rules determined by the WIPO. The Center has become a leader in resolving disputes over abusive registration and use of Internet domain names, commonly known as “cybersquatting.” To challenge an abusive registration of a domain name, a complainant must prove
• the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights
• the person who registered the domain name has no rights or legitimate interests in it
• the domain name was registered or is being used in bad faith to extract payment from the trademark owner or prevent the trademark owner from using the domain name for his or her benefit
In 2000 the Center handled 1,850 cases. The process is conducted on-line, resulting in enforceable decisions within two months.