World IPR Day
India along with the rest of the world will observe
the World Intellectual Property Day on April 26,
2008, with the Theme “Innovation and promoting
respect for intellectual property.”
This is the eighth
year of IPR DAY. Each year, a message or theme
is associated with an event. Creating the Future
Today (2001), Encouraging Creativity (2002, 2004,
2007), Make Intellectual Property Your Business
(2003), Think, Imagine, Create (2005), It Starts
With An Idea (2006).
The day is aimed
at raising awareness of the role of intellectual
property in our lives. Most people are aware of
intellectual property (IP) - of copyright, patents,
industrial designs and trademarks, but only as
business or legal concepts with little relevance
to their lives. IPR DAY seeks to bridge
this gap . World IPR Day also seeks to increase
understanding of how protecting IP rights helps
promote creativity and innovation.
In a message
for the occasion, Director-General of WIPO, Kamal
Idris says that the World Intellectual Property
Day is growing in popularity, judging from the
increasing numbers of governments and organisations
joining the WIPO in the annual celebrations.
“On this
day we are celebrating not only the enormous power
of human creativity, but also the intellectual
property rights that help to fuel and channel
it for development”.
“Human
creativity has taken the society from the invention
of the first wheel, to effortless air travel,
the printing press and on to the Internet, which
has given people the technical advances that allow
millions of people to have a level of well-being
that was unimaginable a few generations ago.
“WIPO is
committed to using intellectual property as a
means of harnessing and spreading the power of
human creativity and innovation so that the people
of every country can share in their bounty. And
so, on World Intellectual Property Day, we pay
tribute to the inventors and artists, who enrich
our existence with the fruits of their innovative
thoughts and creative vision.”
“One may
wonder about the relevance of intellectual property,
copyrights, patents, industrial designs or trademarks
with issues like stopping global warming; or watching
their favorite athletes perform in this year’s
Olympics? The answer is that, without intellectual
property rights, many new technologies developed
to tackle global problems would never see the
light of day and the great sporting events, which
entertain and unite us, would not be broadcast
into homes across the globe.”
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China will set
up a state-level International Copyright Trading
Center in Beijing to facilitate the development
of the country’s copyright industry. The
centre is intended to serve as a multifunctional
base in China’s copyright industry.
According to
Duan Guijian, director of the China Copyright
Center:
The new center
will provide mainly four kinds of services, namely,
copyright approval registration, copyright trading
service, copyright protection and experts’
inquiry.
China’s
rapidly-developing copyright industry requires
further openness and more extensive exchanges
with its global peers. Previously, some regional
copyright centers have shouldered such responsibilities.
The establishment
of the state-level center is expected to facilitate
these exchanges on the international level.
Wang Peili, deputy
governor of Beijing Dongcheng District has said: ”Our
objective is to establish the country’s
most authoritative copyright registration and
information system. We also aim to establish a
national center for copyright enterprises, a comprehensive
trading center and a copyright capital operation
center. “
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