The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is one of the 17 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 185 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. 184 of the UN Members as well as the Holy See are Members of WIPO. Non-members are the states of Cook Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, and the states with limited recognition. Palestine has observer status.
Read more about World Intellectual Property Organization: History, Information Network, Directors-General
Famous quotes containing the words world, intellectual, property and/or organization:
“That the world is a divine game and beyond good and evil:Min this the Vedanta philosophy and Heraclitus are my predecessors.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Things have their laws, as well as men; and things refuse to be trifled with. Property will be protected.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)