The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for administering 26 treaties that provide international protection to various types of intellectual property assets.
WIPO IP Resources
The WIPO website provides access to the following resources:
- Intellectual Property for Business
This WIPO gateway page provides helpful background information and resources for proprietors of small and medium- sized enterprises. It explains the interplay between intellectual property and contemporary e-commerce, with IP assets underlying the platforms on which e-commerce is conducted while also constituting much of the licensed content that is sold online.
- WIPO-Administered Treaties
This gateway page for the 26 IP treaties administered by WIPO includes links to the full text of each treaty, summaries thereof, as well as treaty status and ratification information.
- Member States
This gateway page provides jurisdiction-specific information for each WIPO member state, including its IP treaty ratifications and links to its national IP laws. Scroll down to browse alphabetically by country name.
- WIPO Lex
WIPO’s online database of IP treaties, national IP laws, and IP-related court judgments supports full-text searching by keyword. Alternatively, you may browse for treaties, national laws, and court judgments, or browse by jurisdiction for all types of materials.
WIPO’s Role in Domain Name Dispute Resolution & Rights Protection
Domain Name Dispute Resolution
The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center is the leading provider of alternative dispute resolution services for domain name disputes, having processed more than 37,000 cases. In addition to administering second-level domain name disputes for generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, the Center also administers disputes under policies adopted by individual gTLD registries. Decisions rendered by the WIPO Arbitration & Mediation Center are available on Bloomberg Law.
Domain Name Rights Protection
- Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)
WIPO has provided advice on registration and dispute resolution procedures for many of the country code Top-Level Domains introduced since 2000.
- New Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)
WIPO also is actively involved in developing rights protection mechanisms for the more than 1,000 new generic Top-Level Domains Names that are being introduced by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
