World Intellectual Property Day

April 26 is World Intellectual Property Day, a time when the world celebrates the role intellectual property plays in innovation and creativity.  This year's theme is "Digital Creativity: Culture Reimagined."

"The way in which creative works are produced, distributed and enjoyed around the world has been reimagined as a consequence of digital technology, the head of the United Nations World Intellectual Property organization (WIPO) said today.  In a message marking World Intellectual Property Day, WIPO Director General Francis Gurry stated: “On this day, as we celebrate digital creativity across the world, we should also think about how to find the right balance – one which recognizes the importance of creators and innovators to all the progress that we see ... as a consequence of digital technology.” He noted that the internet provides an enormous opportunity for creators to interact directly with their audiences – an interaction that was previously more confined. “Now, with the Internet, the audience has become potentially the whole world. That is an enormous creative opportunity. It's an enormous cultural opportunity. And it's an enormous economic opportunity,” he said.

WIPO, a specialized agency of the UN, is a global forum for intellectual property policy, services, information and cooperation. World Intellectual Property Day, which has been observed since 2000, marks the day in 1970 when the convention establishing WIPO entered into force.

(cgb)