Intellectual Property Programme • Volume 12 • Number 17 • 14th May 2008

WIPO members choose Francis Gurry to be next Director-General

Do More

See also

Francis Gurry has been nominated to be the next director-general of the World Intellectual Property Organization.

WIPO members on 13 May voted by the narrowest of margins for the Australian national to succeed current Director-General Kamil Idris (Sudan) in October. Idris, who has held the position since 1998, agreed to step down a year early after allegations that he had falsified his age in WIPO records to secure professional advancement and financial benefits (see BRIDGES Weekly, 26 September 2007).

Gurry has spent most of his professional life at WIPO. In his most recent capacity, he served as deputy director-general in charge of issues such as patent policy and law, the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), and traditional knowledge and folklore. He played an important role in developing WIPO’s dispute resolution services.

Fifteen candidates were vying to become head of the UN agency when the campaign kicked off last year. Only three survived the initial rounds of voting: Gurry; José Graça Aranha, a WIPO official from Brazil; and Masood Khan, the ambassador of Pakistan. The rest withdrew after the second round.

As per WIPO procedures, only 83 of the institution’s 184 members - members of the Coordination Committee - were able to vote. In the final round of voting, Gurry prevailed over the Brazilian candidate, 42 votes to 41.

The nomination is expected to be endorsed by WIPO’s full membership at the next session of the WIPO General Assembly, in September.

Intellectual Property Watch reports that Gurry, perhaps mindful of the narrow vote, sought to reach out to reach out to all WIPO members after his victory. “I want to assure the membership that as of conclusion of this process my mind will be set on all members,” he said. “I’m very much aware of the diversity of the organization.”

In April, while speaking to civil society organizations in Geneva along with several of his fellow candidates, Gurry stressed the importance of “mainstream[ing] development” throughout the WIPO secretariat.

Addressing a set of high-profile reform proposals aimed at placing development concerns at the heart of the institution’s work, Gurry said that “all of the parts of the organisation should perform functions related to the [WIPO] Development Agenda.”

Gurry said the challenge would be to translate the fairly general recommendations into “concrete projects.”

Responding to a question about what his priorities would be, as director-general, in terms of implementing the Development Agenda, he focused on capacity building. As one step towards reducing the knowledge gap and the digital divide, he called for improving the access of developing country universities and research institutions to technological information related to patents, much of which is digitally available and in the public domain. Another could be making information in ordinarily-expensive scientific publications available to intellectual property offices, research institutions and universities in developing countries.

Gurry’s third priority would be to make developing country intellectual property offices more dynamic, transforming them from simple registration offices into service centres for the local enterprise sector and universities.

Intellectual property systems are “supposed to provide a social benefit,” he stressed.

Francis Gurry holds law degrees from the University of Melbourne and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He is the author of several books and articles in the area of intellectual property.

Video of Gurry’s remarks to civil society groups is available at http://ciel.org/Tae/WIPO_DirGen_15Apr.html.

A short bio of Francis Gurry is available at http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/contact/.

ICTSD reporting; “Francis Gurry Of Australia Wins Election To Be Next WIPO Director General,” INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY WATCH, 13 May 2008.