World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

The UN Postal Dept. issued these two nice stamps and the impressive cover to honour the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). Merja gave me this nice FDC.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) is an international organization dedicated to facilitating worldwide protection of the rights of creators and owners of intellectual property. WIPO's origin dates back to 1883 in Geneva, Switzerland when the Paris Convention entered into force and an International Bureau was set up to carry out administrative tasks. This International Bureau evolved over time to become known in 1970 as WIPO. In 1974, WIPO became a specialized agency of the United Nations and in 1996, WIPO expanded its role into globalized trade by entering into a cooperation agreement with the World Trade Organization.

WIPO currently has 182 states (as of 26 Sept 2005) that are members of the organization and administers 23 treaties (two of which are in conjunction with other international organizations).
The 23 treaties administered by WIPO are divided into three classes:

1. Intellectual Property Treaties that define the internationally agreed basic standards of intellectual property protection; e.g. Paris Convention
2. Global P
3. rotection System Treaties that aim to ensure that one international registration or filing will have effect in any of the relevant signatory States; e.g. PCT and Budapest Treaty.
4. Classification Treaties that create systems that organize information concerning inventions into indexed structures to enable easy retrieval; e.g. International Patent Classification (IPC).