The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is an international organization dedicated to helping ensure that the rights of creators and owners of intellectual property are protected worldwide and that inventors and authors are, thus, recognized and rewarded for their ingenuity.
    The roots of the World Intellectual Property Organization go back to 1833. That year marked the birth of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, the first major international treaty designed to help people of one country obtain protection in other countries for their intellectual creations in the form of industrial property rights.
    The Paris Convention entered into force in 1884 with 14 member states, which set up an International Bureau to carry out administrative tasks.
    In 1886, copyright entered the international arena with the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Like the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention set up an International Bureau to carry out administrative tasks.
    In 1893, these two small bureaus united to form an international organization called the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property (best known by its French acronym, BIRPI). Based in Berne, Switzerland, with a staff of seven, this small organization was the predecessor of the World Intellectual Property Organization of today — a dynamic entity with more than 170 member states and a staff that includes some 650 people from around the world.
    As the importance of intellectual property grew, the structure and form of the organization changed as well. In 1960, BIRPI moved from Berne to Geneva to be closer to the United Nations and other international organizations in that city. A decade later, following the entry into force of the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, BIRPI became WIPO, undergoing structural and administrative reforms and acquiring a secretariat answerable to the member states.
    In 1974, WIPO became a specialized agency of the United Nations system of organizations, with a mandate to administer intellectual property matters recognized by the member states of the UN. WIPO expanded its role and further demonstrated the importance of intellectual property rights in the management of globalized trade in 1996 by entering into a cooperative agreement with the World Trade Organization.
    In 1898, BIRPI administered only four international treaties. A century later, WIPO administers 21 treaties (two of those jointly with other international organizations) and carries out a rich and varied program of work. Through its member states and secretariat, WIPO seeks to:
Harmonize national intellectual property legislation and procedures.
Provide services for international applications for industrial property rights.
Exchange intellectual property information.
Provide legal and technical assistance to developing and other countries.
Facilitate the resolution of private intellectual property disputes.
Marshal information technology as a tool for storing, accessing, and using valuable intellectual property information.

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