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Bannerman, Sara --- "The World Intellectual Property Organization and traditional knowledge" [2015] ELECD 1509; in Rimmer, Matthew (ed), "Indigenous Intellectual Property" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015) 83

Book Title: Indigenous Intellectual Property

Editor(s): Rimmer, Matthew

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781955895

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: The World Intellectual Property Organization and traditional knowledge

Author(s): Bannerman, Sara

Number of pages: 23

Abstract/Description:

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is a special agency of the United Nations, established in 1970 to ‘to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world’. Its current stated mission is ‘to promote innovation and creativity for the economic, social and cultural development of all countries, through a balanced and effective international intellectual property system’. It seeks to do so by offering services that make it easier to obtain international protection for patents, trademarks, designs and appellations of origin; offering services to resolve intellectual property disputes; developing international legal frameworks for intellectual property; building infrastructure such as databases, tools and information platforms related to intellectual property; and by capacity-building in the use of intellectual property ‘to support economic development’. Although the focus of WIPO and its predecessors has been on building and expanding Western intellectual property laws that apply to Western works and subject-matter, WIPO has also been involved in debates about the protection of other sorts of subject-matter, including folklore since the 1970s, and traditional knowledge since 1998. It has become increasingly involved in norm-setting in the areas of traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions, and genetic resources in recent years. This involvement is driven, in part, by those who argue that the misappropriation and misuse of traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions and genetic resources now take place on an international scale, and that, as such, international rules are necessary.