Fifty-First Series of Meetings of the WIPO Assemblies

The meetings of the 2013 WIPO Assemblies ended on 3rd October, 2013. Hungary will continue to play an important role in the international negotiations, as Dr. Miklós Bendzsel, President of the Hungarian IP Office, was successfully elected as Vice-Chair of the Berne Union Executive Committee and Dr. Virág Krisztina Halgand (DPR of the Permanent Mission of Hungary to the WTO) as Vice-Chair of the WIPO Coordination Committee. According to the decisions of WIPO Member States Hungary will retain its membership in the Coordination Committee and in the Program and Budget Committee as well.

Several key issues were agreed by the Assemblies, in particular the following: 
- The convening of a Diplomatic Conference for the Adoption of a Revised Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications in 2015. The convening of the Diplomatic Conference was approved upon the recommendation of the Working Group on the Development of the Lisbon System. The Lisbon Working Group is chaired by Mr. Mihály Ficsor, Vice-President for Legal Affairs, Hungarian IP Office.
- Extension of the mandate of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (the IGC) for the 2014-2015 biennium.
- The procedures and process for the appointment of the Director General in 2014.
- Appointment of the State Intellectual Property Service of Ukraine as an International Searching and Preliminary Examining Authority under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

Since the Member States could not reach agreement on some outstanding issues, an extraordinary session of the Assemblies will be convened in December 2013 to consider particularly:
- WIPO's program and budget for the 2014/15 biennium, including the establishment of new external offices.
- The convening of a diplomatic conference for the adoption of a Design Law Treaty to develop simplified standards for industrial design registration procedures.
- Decisions related to the report of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR).

For further information, please refer to:
http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2013/article_0022.html