WIPO

If a Mumbai start-up files one patent form and is treated as having applied in dozens of countries, someone has built the filing system behind that form. If a company finds that a cyber-squatter has taken its name as a web address, there is a body that can decide the dispute in weeks without a court. Both services come from the same Geneva organisation, WIPO. It is the quiet administrator of the world’s intellectual property treaties, and this topic explains what it does.

In two minutes

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), established by a convention signed at Stockholm in 1967 and in force from 1970, is a specialised agency of the United Nations based in Geneva that promotes the protection of intellectual property worldwide, administers most IP treaties and runs global filing and dispute services.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Intellectual Property Laws on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.