April 26 marks the World Intellectual Property Day

Baku, April 26, AZERTAC

The World Intellectual Property Day is celebrated every year on April 26. It is also known as World IP Day. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, it is necessary to be safe therefore, WIPO is not organising any physical events, and encourages the community of World IP Day to celebrate via virtual channels. The day is celebrated to make people know how intellectual property (IP) rights encourage innovation and creativity. This year World IP Day puts innovation and supports the efforts to create a green future. It is a need to care for our earth our home.

It was established by the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO). It promotes the role of IP in stimulating innovation and creativity.

In fact, World Intellectual Property Day provides an opportunity for IP offices, inventors and enterprises whether big or small to discuss and connect with each other about the emerging various innovations that will help in shaping the world and also improves the living of people.

World Intellectual Property Day 2023 will be celebrated around the theme 'Women and IP: Accelerating Innovation and Creativity.' According to the official website, "For generations, women have shaped our world with their ingenuity and creativity. Women everywhere are driving scientific breakthroughs, Setting new creative trends, building businesses and transforming our world. So we need to encourage more women to use the IP system to protect and add value to their work. That way, we can develop more and better technologies that work for everyone, establish more thriving woman-led businesses Support economic recovery and build back better."

History

It is committed to developing a balanced and approachable international intellectual property (IP) system, which rewards creativity, encourages innovation and contributes to economic development while safeguarding the public interest.

In 2000, WIPO's member states designated April 26, the day on which the WIPO Convention came into force in 1970. They want to minimise the gap between IP as a business or legal concept and its relevance to people's lives.

To promote World Intellectual Property Day every year, WIPO works together with several agencies of government, non-government organisations, community groups and individuals to organise events and activities.

Stage concerts or various public performances focussed around the World IP Day theme.

Essay competitions for young people on the theme of World IP Day.

Seminars or free lectures in several universities are provided to build awareness about IP and its benefits.

To explain the link between innovation and intellectual property various exhibitions in museums, art galleries, schools and other educational institutions are organised on World IP Day.

On 26 April some local intellectual and copyright offices may have open to promote World IP Day. But due to COVID-19, this year's celebration WIPO is not organising any events. The celebration will not be there, it is necessary to be safe and to take appropriate precautions.

Therefore, we can say that every year on 26 April World Intellectual Property Day is observed to spread awareness about the role that intellectual property rights (patents, trademarks, industrial designs, copyright) play in encouraging innovation and creativity.

About World Intellectual Property Organisation

The origins of WIPO are traced back to 1883 during the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, when 14 countries signed Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, Hence, from that convention intellectual-property protections for inventions, trademarks, and industrial designs were created.

WIPO was formally created by the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, which entered into force on April 26, 1970. Under this Convention, WIPO seeks to "promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world." It became a specialized agency of the UN in 1974.

WIPO's activities include hosting forums where international IP rules and policies are discussed and shaped, offering services globally that register and protect IP in various nations, resolving transboundary IP disputes, assisting in the connection of IP systems through uniform standards and infrastructure, and acting as a general reference database on all IP matters, including providing reports and statistics on the state of IP protection or innovation both globally and in specific countries. In order to use IP for socioeconomic development, WIPO also collaborates with governmental bodies, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), and individuals.

Intellectual Property Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan has been established according to the Order of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan No 5 dated to April 20, 2018 “on Measures to improve management in the field of consumption market control, standardization, metrology and protection of intellectual property rights” through reorganization of Copyright Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Patent and Trademark Center in the form of merger.

As a continuation of structural reforms, the “Charter of the Intellectual Property Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan” was approved by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan No. 222 dated July 30, 2018 “On ensuring the activities of the Intellectual Property Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan”. The Center for Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights under Copyright Agency and the Republican Scientific and Technical Library under the abolished State Committee for Standardization, Metrology and Patents have been transferred under Intellectual Property Agency. Patent and Trademark Examination Center has been established under Agency.

According to its Charter Agency is the legal entity of public law providing development of the field of copyrights, related rights, rights to compilations of data and topographies of integrated circuits, rights to inventions, utility models, industrial designs, trademarks and geographical indications, rights to Azerbaijani folklore expressions (traditional cultural expressions), traditional knowledge and other expressions of intangible cultural heritage (hereinafter – intellectual property rights) implementing single regulation and control and coordinating activity in this field.

Agency shall be engaged in activity that has state and public importance. For the provision of services related to the registration of the relevant legal facts provided by the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan "on State duty" (for legal actions) employees of Agency are equated to civil servants.

The goal of the Agency's activity is to ensure the effective functioning, sustainable development and transparency of intellectual property rights field in the Republic of Azerbaijan, to protect the rights of intellectual property rights holders, to enhance the knowledge and impact on information society in the indicated field and to take the lead principles and standards in the field of intellectual property rights when performing activities determined in this Charter.