INTERVIEW WITH FRANCIS GURRY
Francis Gurry took over as director general of the World
Intellectual Property Organization in 2008. The job is the culmination of a 25-year career at WIPO and presents a unique set of challenges. WIPR spoke to him about the organisation’s achievements so far and its targets for the future.
As a United Nations special agency, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is in part subject to the internal politics of its parent body: a fiercely contested field when it comes to IP. Its aims, says director general Francis Gurry, are threefold: WIPO is an executive body, which administers services for countries, companies and inventors; it is also a diplomatic organisation, attempting to negotiate, mediate and arbitrate between competing national interests; and finally, it is a development agency, tasked with supporting and encouraging IP protection in countries that currently have poor or non-existent regulation.
Te three overlap to an extent, but each also presents its own distinct challenges. Gurry says that the service element of the mandate is going well, despite a decline in Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications during the financial crisis. Te main challenge is to really internationalise the Madrid Protocol on trademarks and the Hague System for industrial designs, he adds.
More broadly, there is a “need to make a regulatory framework so that it is more responsive to technology and business”, Gurry says. “Tere is a jetlag between the speed of development of
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technology and the slowness of the multilateral process. It is a challenge of keeping the system relevant. If we fail, then either bilateral or market- based answers will replace WIPO.” Tis would be damaging for several reasons, not least because in a bilateral system, the stronger economy tends to call the shots. And in a world where technology operates in a global market, it makes sense to provide “global solutions to global problems”.
Tis is easier said than done, especially when political pressures are taken into account. “We’re going through great changes at the moment, including significant geopolitical change,” Gurry says. “Tere is also rapid change in technologies and the culture of creative industries. We have to ask ourselves if the legal model is anachronistic, not to mention how to influence the opinion of those who are hostile to IP. You only need to look at the recent iiNET case in Australia [where an ISP was found not to be liable for illegal downloads from its network] and the success of Sweden’s Pirate Party to see that attitudes have changed.”
Gurry suggests that the keys to the internationalist argument lie in getting individual countries on board and developing new approaches to engage with those inimical to IP protection. “If you want an indication of buy-in to the system, China is
World Intellectual Property Review March/April 2010
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