“Operating in a foreign market means, not only protecting your own intellectual assets, but also ensuring that you are not encroaching on those of others in such a way as to attract unwanted litigious attention.”
Francis Gurry, Deputy Director General, World Intellectual Property Organization
WIPO Deputy to Lead Several Sessions at Trading Ideas Symposium
December 2006
A leading global figure in Intellectual Property (IP) policy development, Mr Francis Gurry, will provide delegates to the Trading Ideas Symposium with his views on current directions in the international IP environment.
Mr. Gurry will also lead a session on the role of multilateral fora, such as APEC, WIPO and WTO, in relation to IP and take part in a roundtable session on the future of IP in the Asia-Pacific.
“I will be discussing, in particular, the very rapidly changing landscape of IP internationally, politically, economically, technologically and geographically,” Mr. Gurry said from his office in Geneva in preparation for the Sydney event.
With more than two-thirds of available seats already filled, the Trading Ideas Symposium will bring together a number of major international IP experts and successful IP business strategists for three days of presentations, discussion and networking with business people from around the Asia-Pacific.
“The Symposium will showcase the latest information about developments in IP and emerging services that will be of value to business and industry, as well as provide an insight into the thinking that is informing policies in government and in the enterprise sector.”
These policies are the core structures of the landscape that Mr. Gurry observes is providing business with new opportunities to secure comparative advantage in the marketplace.
“As the source of wealth generation shifts increasingly away from physical capital and towards intellectual capital, intellectual property provides the key to maximizing taking advantage of the opportunities arising from that shift,” Mr. Gurry said.
“As markets become increasingly regional and global, intellectual property in the form of trademarks also provides a simple and effective means of establishing and maintaining a uniform brand and reputation across distributed markets.”
Mr. Gurry believes that obtaining protection internationally and taking advantage of legal protection in the markets in which a business will expand are an obvious necessity.
“There are many economic and strategic advantages that can be obtained from using the global protection systems administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
“Maintaining the legal protection and its economic value and preserving it against unlawful imitation, as well as preserving and renewing the edge that it offers over competitors, are the next task.
“An emerging threat is litigation, which can be extremely expensive in terms of financial resources, management time and market image. Operating in a foreign market means, not only protecting your own intellectual assets, but also ensuring that you are not encroaching on those of others in such a way as to attract unwanted litigious attention.”
Mr. Gurry is one of three keynote speakers and around 40 other speakers at the Trading Ideas Symposium. Other keynote speakers include United States Under Secretary of Commerce For Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Jon W. Dudas, and the President-Elect of the European Patent Office, Alison Brimelow.
IP executives from companies that have successfully capitalized on their IP assets at a regional level, such as Fosters, BlueScope Steele and the Motion Picture Association will also share their experiences.
Prior to his appointment as Deputy Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization, Francis Gurry spent two decades in Geneva working in a range of IP roles. His current responsibilities cover the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), management of the Arbitration and Mediation Centre, and traditional knowledge and folklore.
