The World Intellectual Property Organization is an international treaty-making body within the United Nations that aims to stardardize intellectual property laws across nations.
WIPO Site:
WIPO’s Foundations:
Agreement between the United Nations and WIPO
Note Article 1 stating WIPO’s objective “for promoting creative intellectual activity and for facilitating the transfer of technology related to industrial property to the developing countries in order to accelerate economic, social and cultural development, …”Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (1967 and 1979)
Note WIPO Convention Article 3, “The objectives of the Organization are: (i) to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world through cooperation among States and, where appropriate, in collaboration with any other international organization …”
Background Readings on WIPO:
Geneva 2004 Declaration on the Future of WIPO
Professor James Boyle - Duke Law and Technology Review (8 September 2004) “Manifesto on WIPO and the Future of Intellectual Property”
Jerome Reichman and Keith Maskus in the Journal of International Economic Law Volume 7, Issue 2, 279-320 (June 2004) “ The Globalization of Private Knowledge”