World Intellectual Property Day

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World Intellectual Property Day
Observed byGlobally
Celebrationsonsite events, conferences, exhibitions, competitions, workshops, webinars.
Observances#WorldIPDay
Date26 April
FrequencyAnnual
Related toInventors' Day, World Book and Copyright Day

World Intellectual Property Day is observed annually on 26 April. The event was established by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2000 to "raise awareness of how patents, copyright, trademarks and designs impact on daily life" and "to celebrate creativity, and the contribution made by creators and innovators to the development of economies and societies across the globe". 26 April was chosen as the date for World Intellectual Property Day because it coincides with the date on which the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization entered into force in 1970. World Intellectual Property Day is WIPO’s largest intellectual property (IP) public outreach campaign.[1]

History[edit]

An exhibition showing the intellectual property (IP) behind Steve Jobs' innovations opened to the public at WIPO from 30 March 2012, to World Intellectual Property Day on 26 April 2012. The exhibition tied in with 2012's World Intellectual Property Day theme – 'Visionary Innovators'.

In a statement to the 33rd Session of the Assemblies of the Member States of WIPO in September 1988, the Director General of the National Algerian Institute for Industrial Property (INAPI) “suggested that an International Intellectual Property Day be instituted."[2] In a subsequent letter to the WIPO Director General dated 7 April 1999, Mr. Amor Bouhnik, Director General of INAPI noted that the aim of establishing such a day "would be to set up a framework for broader mobilization and awareness, to open up access to the promotional aspect of innovation and to recognize the achievements of promoters of intellectual property throughout the world."[3]

On 9 August 1999, in a letter from Jiang Ying, Commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese delegation proposed "that WIPO adopt the commemoration of its 30th anniversary of founding (26 April) as the “World Intellectual Property Day," as an annual event. The Commissioner noted that the aim of doing so was “to further promote the awareness of intellectual property protection, expand the influence of intellectual property protection across the world, urge countries to publicize and popularize intellectual property protection laws and regulations, enhance the public legal awareness of intellectual property rights, encourage invention-innovation activities in various countries and strengthen international exchange in the intellectual property field."[4]

In October 1999, at its 26th session, the General Assembly of WIPO approved the idea of declaring a particular day as a World Intellectual Property Day.[5]

Engagement by WIPO’s member states in World Intellectual Property Day has risen since its inception in 2000. In its first year, member states from 59 countries reported official World Intellectual Property Day events.[6] Five years later, in 2005, 110 countries reported official World Intellectual Property Day events,[7] and in 2022, the campaign attracted users from 189 member states.[8]

World Intellectual Property Day events around the world[edit]

Every year hundreds of events are organized around the world by IP offices, law firms, private companies, students and others to celebrate inventors and creators and to promote understanding about the intellectual property system and its associated rights (e.g. copyrights, trademarks, patents, design rights, trade secrets, plant variety rights).[9]

While World Intellectual Property Day is celebrated every year on 26 April, many countries hold their World Intellectual Property Day celebrations on another date. Some, including Peru and Singapore, organize a World Intellectual Property Day week, while others, such as Algeria,[10] roll events out over a month. While WIPO identifies a theme and produces a range of promotional materials around that theme, each country may develop its own national campaign in line with local needs.

Women in Science – Shaping the Future Roundtable event at WIPO to mark World Intellectual Property Day 2023.

To celebrate World IP Day 2023, WIPO, in collaboration with UNESCO and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), brought together women experts in science, including Laureates from the “L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Program" to discuss strategies that women can employ to create value from their research, practical ways to encourage women and young girls to enter STEM fields, and how intellectual property has enabled them to implement their research to give real-world benefits.[11]

Rosanna Díaz Costa, Director, "Un Mundo para Julius / A World for Julius", speaks at the "Film Industry: A Woman’s Perspective" event at WIPO to mark World Intellectual Property Day.
Rosanna Díaz Costa, Director, "Un Mundo para Julius / A World for Julius", speaks at the "Film Industry: A Woman’s Perspective" event at WIPO to mark World Intellectual Property Day 2023.

WIPO also hosted the event "Film Industry: A Woman’s Perspective"[12] in collaboration with the Permanent Mission of Peru to the International Organizations in Geneva. The event included a screening of the award-winning film, “Un Mundo para Julius / A World for Julius” and featured a discussion with Rosanna Díaz Costa, the director, who shared her insights on the film industry from a woman's perspective.

Catherine Jewell, Senior Information Officer, WIPO Information and Digital Outreach Division, announces the winners of the 2022 World Intellectual Property Day Youth Video Competition.

For World Intellectual Property Day 2022, nearly 600 World Intellectual Property Day events were recorded across the globe[13] on topical issues relating to the campaign theme IP and Youth: Innovating for a Better Future, ranging from the protection of comics in Peru,[14] to IP and the blockchain.[15] World Intellectual Property Day is also an opportunity for leading policymakers to express their support for World Intellectual Property Day and to highlight the relevance of intellectual property to regional[16] and national economic development.[17] World Intellectual Property Day 2022 also featured a panel discussion on Innovating for Better Health: Supporting Young Innovators through IP, was organized in collaboration with the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) with the support of the Geneva Health Forum and Speak UP Africa, which brought together young innovators/entrepreneurs and mentors from various countries and international experts.[18] World Intellectual Property Day 2022 also featured the first World Intellectual Day Youth Video Competition.[19] In the Report of the Director General Daren Tang to the Assemblies of WIPO in July 2022, WIPO Director General said, I am also happy to report that this year's World Intellectual Property Day attracted record global engagement. Themed around ‘IP and Youth: Innovating for a Better Future’, we recorded over 15 million impressions across our digital platforms and there were nearly 600 World Intellectual Property Day events across 189 Member States, our largest participation ever.[20]

Themes[edit]

Each year, the campaign is rolled out around a topical theme:

  • 2024 – IP and the SDGs: Building our common future with innovation and creativity[21]
  • 2023 – Women and IP: Accelerating Innovation and Creativity[22]
  • 2022 – IP and Youth: Innovating for a Better Future[23]
  • 2021 – IP and SMEs: Taking Your Ideas to Market[24]
  • 2020 – Innovate for a Green Future[25]
  • 2019 – Reach for Gold: IP and Sports[26]
  • 2018 – Powering Change: Women in Innovation and Creativity[27]
  • 2017 – Innovation – Improving Lives[28]
  • 2016 – Digital Creativity: Culture Reimagined.[29]
  • 2015 – Get Up, Stand Up. For Music.[30]
  • 2014 – Movies – a Global Passion[31]
  • 2013 – Creativity – The Next Generation[32]
  • 2012 – Visionary Innovators[33]
  • 2011 – Designing the Future[34]
  • 2010 – Innovation – Linking the World[35]
  • 2009 – Green Innovation[36][37]
  • 2008 – Celebrating innovation and promoting respect for intellectual property[36][38]
  • 2007 – Encouraging Creativity[36]
  • 2006 – It Starts with an Idea[36]
  • 2005 – Think, Imagine, Create[36]
  • 2004 – Encouraging Creativity[36]
  • 2003 – Make Intellectual Property Your Business[36]
  • 2002 – Encouraging Creativity[36]
  • 2001 – Creating the Future Today[36]

Criticism[edit]

This event has been criticized by a number of activists and scholars as one-sided propaganda in favor of traditional copyright, ignoring alternatives related to copyleft and the free culture movement.
Mike Masnick of Techdirt wrote that World Intellectual Property Day is intended "to promote ever greater protectionism and mercantilism in favor of copyright holders and patent holders, while ignoring any impact on the public of those things. It's a fairly disgusting distortion of the claimed intent of intellectual property."[39] Zak Rogoff of the Defective by Design noted that it is a "global but decidedly not grassroots event".[40] It has also been criticized by activists from civil society organizations such as IP Justice and the Electronic Information for Libraries who consider it one-sided propaganda as the marketing materials associated with the event, provided by WIPO, "come across as unrepresentative of other views and events".[41] Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, noted that "World Intellectual Property Day has become little more than a lobbyist day".[42] Cushla Kapitzk from the Queensland University of Technology wrote that most of the WIPO's statements related to promotion of the World Intellectual Property Day are "either exaggerated or unsubstantiated"; noting that for example one of WIPO's claims used to promote this event, namely that "copyright helps bring music to our ears and art, films and literature before our eyes" is "tenuous at best, and lexical association of copyright with things recognised as having social and cultural value ('art', 'film' and 'literature') functions to legitimate its formulation and widespread application".[43]

A number of grassroots-supported observances in opposition of prevalent IP laws celebrated by the World Intellectual Property Day exist, none of them supported by WIPO:

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ WIPO web site, World Intellectual Property Day – 26 April. Accessed 20 April 2011.
  2. ^ "ASSEMBLIES OF THE MEMBER STATES OF WIPO. GENERAL REPORT" (PDF).
  3. ^ Letter of 7 April 1999 from Amor Bouhnik, Director General of the National Algerian Institute for Industrial Property, to the Director General of WIPO (Ref: 027 DG/MS/99) in World Intellectual Property Organization web site, "WIPO General Assembly, Twenty-Fourth (14th Ordinary) Session, Geneva, 20 to 29 September 1999, Institutionalization of an International Day for Intellectual Property. Proposal by the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria". Archived from the original on 22 December 2003. Retrieved 28 April 2007., WO/GA/24/7, 10 August 1999.
  4. ^ Letter dated 9 August 1999 from Jiang Ying, Commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China, to Dr. Kamil Idris, Director General of World Intellectual Property Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, in World Intellectual Property Organization web site, "WIPO General Assembly, Twenty-Fourth (14th Ordinary) Session, Geneva, 20 to 29 September 1999, Institutionalization of a World Intellectual Property Day. Proposal by the People's Republic of China". 20 August 1999. Archived from the original on 22 December 2003. Retrieved 28 April 2007.
  5. ^ World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO General Assembly, Twenty-Sixth (12th Extraordinary) Session, Geneva, 25 September to 3 October 2000, Memorandum of the Director General, WO/GA/26/2, 26 July 2000.
  6. ^ "Program Performance Report for the 2000-2001 Biennium". www.wipo.int. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
  7. ^ "program performance report for THE 2004-2005 BIENNIUM". WIPO. 31 July 2006.
  8. ^ "Report of the Director General to the Assemblies of WIPO – July 14 to 22, 2022".
  9. ^ "program performance report for THE 2004-2005 BIENNIUM". WIPO. 31 July 2006.
  10. ^ "Lancement du Mois de la Propriété intellectuelle". www.wipo.int (in French). Retrieved 19 September 2022.
  11. ^ "Roundtable – Women in Science – Shaping the Future". WIPO. 26 April 2023.
  12. ^ "World IP Day 2023 - Film Industry: A Woman's Perspective". Eventbrite by World Intellectual Property Organization.
  13. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day Events Calendar". www.wipo.int. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
  14. ^ "#SemanaDelaPropiedadIntelectual Más de 18 mil jóvenes siguieron videoconferencias gratuitas sobre cómics organizadas por Indecopi". www.gob.pe (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 September 2022.
  15. ^ admin (28 March 2022). "Videoconferenza per la Giornata Mondiale del Diritto d'Autore 2022. Copyright, Blockchain e utilizzo fisico. Il futuro descritto da AIDA. ⋆ AIDA". AIDA (in Italian). Retrieved 27 September 2022.
  16. ^ World IP Day 2022 - A message from the ARIPO Director General, retrieved 27 September 2022
  17. ^ Alvin, Tan (26 April 2022). "Opening Address by Mr Alvin Tan, Minister of State, Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth & Ministry Of Trade and Industry, at World Intellectual Property Day 2022". IPOS. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
  18. ^ "WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DAY - WIPO Webcast". WIPO Webcast.
  19. ^ "World IP Day Youth Video Competition". www.wipo.int.
  20. ^ "WIPO Director General Addresses the 2022 meetings of the WIPO Assemblies (July 14, 2022)". www.wipo.int. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
  21. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day April 26, 2024". ipday. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
  22. ^ "World IP Day website".
  23. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day – About the Theme". WIPO. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  24. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day 2021". WIPO. Retrieved 30 April 2021.
  25. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day 2020". WIPO. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  26. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day 2019". WIPO. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
  27. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day – April 26, 2018". WIPO. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
  28. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day – April 26, 2017". WIPO. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  29. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day 2016". WIPO. Retrieved 18 February 2016.
  30. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day 2015". WIPO. Retrieved 18 February 2016.
  31. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day 2014". WIPO. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
  32. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day 2013". WIPO. Retrieved 3 April 2013.
  33. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day 2012". WIPO. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
  34. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day 2011". WIPO. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
  35. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day 2010". WIPO. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
  36. ^ a b c d e f g h i "World Intellectual Property Day Archives". WIPO. Archived from the original on 15 March 2010. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  37. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day 2009". WIPO. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
  38. ^ UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) web site, World Intellectual Property Day, 26 April 2008, Celebrating innovation and promoting respect for intellectual property, Events, World IP Day. Accessed 27 March 2008.
  39. ^ Masnick, Mike (26 April 2017). "For World 'Intellectual Property' Day, A Reading From Thomas Macaulay". Techdirt. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
  40. ^ "Organize your community for digital freedom on May 3rd". Defective by Design. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
  41. ^ Bangasser, Sandra (2009), Multilateral Institutions and the Recontextualization of Political Marketing: How the World Intellectual Property Organizations Outreach Efforts Reflect Changing Audiences
  42. ^ "World Intellectual Property Day". Michael Geist. 26 April 2007. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
  43. ^ Kapitzke, Cushla (1 December 2006). "Intellectual Property Rights: Governing Cultural and Educational Futures" (PDF). Policy Futures in Education. 4 (4): 431–445. doi:10.2304/pfie.2006.4.4.431. ISSN 1478-2103. S2CID 143165888.

External links[edit]

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