August 9, 2024 • 51 mins
This week Lee and Gwilym are joined by Lisa Jorgenson of WIPO as she shares her incredible career journey from sales, to IP litigation, to her current role at WIPO. Join the Peas as they chat with Lisa about WIPO's collaborative efforts to advance intellectual property on a global scale, the structure and functions of WIPO, and the role of the PCT in shaping patent strategies. Lisa also describes the the global initiatives led by WIPO, especially those aimed at supporting developing countries and empowering women and minorities in the IP field.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So, Gwilym, when was the last time that we did a
podcast?
Can you remember?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Not long ago Not long ago, but it was between these
two podcasts you went throughhuge physical danger.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Oh, I played football .
I played football.
Yeah, we played in the SIPAInformals that's the SIPA
students for those who don'tknow, sipa intimately Football
tournament.
There were 17 teams, big oldturnout, so I think we had about
140 people there and we camelast I turned up.
(00:34):
I offered to play in goalbecause, like when I was younger
, it was where everyone used toput me because it was least
damage done.
So I offered to play in goal.
And I was told no, we've got agoalkeeper.
And then I turned up and wasimmediately said are you still
okay to play a goal?
I was like, yeah, I've not gotlong trousers, I've not got long
shirt sleeves.
Have you ever dived?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Have you ever dived on AstroTurf?
No, no, I gather it was a bitspiky, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
You come up like like big carpet burns.
I was absolutely covered incarpet burns, so not to be
recommended, I think.
But no, an enjoyable time washad by all, I think.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
We yeah, my firm sent two teams.
I checked in.
Our B team beat you, oh thanks,and it was a mixed game, of
course, and our female strikerput three past your goalie.
Don't know who it was thatmight have been me.
No, it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
No, I wasn't in goal at that time.
I'd come back to go on pitch.
That was Yemi yeah.
Yeah, I didn't get the name ofyour female striker, but she did
entirely sound me like a lameduck.
She did this nifty littlemanoeuvre thing with her feet
and I just didn't know where Iwas.
I was totally confused.
I fell over.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, that's my response.
My own feet start moving insympathy.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah, it was exactly that.
It was like trying to mirrorthe movements.
Bang down, I went, but no, wedid have a good time, but we did
get soundly beaten by everybodywho played us.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
But was it fun Because it's about taking part
everybody who played us.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
But was it fun Because it's about taking part,
and I played every single minute.
I was on pitch for every minute.
How cool is that, seeing as Iwas the oldest person there?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Oh, you'd be pleased then, because my colleague says
no, I don't think we playedagainst Lee, because there were
no old blokes on the team.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Look at you, I'll take that.
I'll take that.
No, there was very much an oldbloke on the team but, to be
fair, I still move reasonablyfast for an old bloke.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It's those glutes.
We talked about that lastpodcast.
Those glutes, definitely glutes.
Lee Davis and Gwilym Robertsare the two IPs in a pod and you
are listening to a podcast onintellectual property brought to
you by the Chartered Instituteof Patent Determination.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So, ok, second podcast.
Today We've gotisa jorgensenreturning to the podcast for us,
um, because last time we werecorded with lisa and we had a
bit of a sound issue and wecould never, ever get it um
broadcast quality.
So this is um, this is reallyexciting for us, um, we love it
when a guest comes back, evenespecially lisa, when they
didn't actually make it on inthe first place.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Well, welcome to the podcast thank you so much for
having me.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Oh, it's a pleasure, it's a real pleasure.
So where to start off, gwilym?
Where do we want to go firstwith questions for Lisa?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Well, why don't we get Lisa, if you would care to
introduce yourself and tell us alittle about your history and
background, how you got to WIPO?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah, sure, I'd be pleased to.
So let me just start with mywork history, because I think
that will sort of demonstratehow I got to WIPO.
I actually started out in awhole nother career of sales for
Westinghouse and electricalequipment to the nuclear power
industry Oxymoron since I have ascience background and not an
(03:41):
electrical background.
But it worked and I had a greattime and I went to law school
at night.
From there I went down to thatwas in Chicago.
From there I went down toDallas, texas, and started
working for a couple of years asan IP litigator, but after that
I went in-house to STMicroelectronics, a
(04:01):
semiconductor company, where Ispent the next 25 years Wow yeah
.
And in fact I'm now living inGeneva and the story that brings
those two together is theheadquarters of the company I
work for is right down thestreet from where I live ST
Micro.
And after ST I decided to seewhat other things I might like
(04:24):
to do and I went to an NGO inWashington DC for about five and
a half years.
That was AIPLA, the AmericanIntellectual Property Law
Association, and from there,right in the middle of COVID, I
decided to leave AIPLA and comeover to WIPO.
So I moved to.
My husband and I moved overhere during COVID, which was
(04:45):
unique in and of itself becausewe got off the plane and went
straight into quarantine andthen had to try to find a place
to live.
So that was a unique experiencein and of itself.
But I really enjoyed my time atdifferent from ST, but at AIPLA,
where I started to get moreinvolved with outreach to
members of an organization andfelt that coming to WIPO would
(05:08):
be sort of an enhancement ofthat and my ability to work with
both stakeholders and memberstates would be just a great
sort of turn in my career.
And it's turned out to be justthat.
I have loved every minute ofbeing at WIPO.
It's turned out to be just that.
I have loved every minute ofbeing at WIPO.
I'm in charge of one of theeight sectors at the patent and
(05:28):
technology sector, which is thesector that brings in the most
revenue.
About 76% of WIPO's incomecomes in through the PCT.
So that's the background andhow I got to WIPO.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Can I just dwell momentarily on the AIPLA five
and a half years Because I've.
So we met Vincent Garlick backin back in back at Inter Gwilym
and I did some podcasts there,so I had the chance to speak to
Vincent about his experience ofAIPLA.
And it was so nice to speak tosomeone else who's running a
largely voluntary membershipassociation.
How did you find your timeworking with a bunch of
(06:06):
volunteers?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Actually it was amazing because as a volunteer,
they all wanted to really try todo the most that they could for
AIPLA, for the various programs, the committees running the
committees trying to have aninfluence and an impact in the
various IP areas.
And it's just, you know, eitherthat or the volunteers would
(06:29):
also find ways to network toalso help to enhance their own
careers.
Yeah yeah, I think that reallyhelped out a lot too for people
being, you know, any of theseNGO type organizations.
Of course I still believe AIPLAis one of the best
organizations.
Of course I still believe AIPLAis one of the best and, you
know, it really does give peoplean opportunity to meet, to
(06:50):
network, to benchmark and alsoto have a real influence and
impact in the IP areas thatthey're most interested in.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Absolutely.
We enjoy our relationship withAIPLA.
Our American colleagues wereover just a few weeks back and
it's just such an amazing fewdays.
Obviously, we've got lots ofshared interests, particularly
around substantive pattern orharmonization and grace period
and all of those kinds ofconversations that are really
live at the moment that maybe wemight we might perhaps touch on
(07:18):
in the podcast, and I thinkwe're both learning from one
another.
I think we learned that atInter, didn't we?
That there's lots we can takefrom each other.
I think we're probably both thepremier IP professional bodies
in the world.
That's how I would capture it.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
That's nicely put, lee.
I think, if I may, about thehistory as well, is that it's
pretty unique that you've workedin private practice in-house
non-governmental, thengovernmental.
I mean, I don't think there aremany other things you can do in
our world, is there?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I don't know if that's positive or negative, but
yes, that's true.
Yeah, I actually found it to bejust sort of a progression at
each phase and I found coming toWIPO, having that corporate
background in the PCT, wasreally beneficial because in
many ways you know, wipo is verytypical UN organization the
(08:12):
technical side of the UNorganization, and that part's
been a big learning curve for me.
But in another way, wipo, or atleast in the PCT, is very much
like a corporation.
You have to understand finances, you have to understand HR
issues, union issues, how to runan organization, efficiencies
(08:34):
and operations et cetera.
So I think my corporatebackground probably was very
helpful for me in the role thatI'm in now.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
That's interesting and also, I guess, looking out
you kind of work, yourconstituents at WIPO are people
who have patents, people who areaffected by patents and people
who help them get patents, andagain I guess you've got a
little insight into what they'reall thinking.
So presumably you know yourcustomer base very well as well.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, I think that's really true.
I think, from the standpoint ofwhether you're an individual
inventor or an SME or a larger,small corporation, I think I do
have that background to say in acouple or a variety of
different areas, for example inwhy would you need a patent in
the first place, what's it goingto do, how are you going to
(09:25):
benefit from that, to patentstrategies, to IP financing, ip
licensing, and how does the PCTthen fit into all of that?
So I think I think that's true.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah, Maybe moving on a little bit to the PCT side of
of things or the wiper side ofthings, sorry, um, certainly, in
my world of patent attorney,patent practitioner, you hear
wiper.
You basically think, certainlyas a patent attorney, you think
pct, but you've alreadymentioned that you're, you know
you're one of eight sections, umand pct and tech.
Um, I think what you you saidis the bit that, uh, patents and
(10:00):
tech is a bit that that youtouch on um, but what are the
other areas?
Very quickly, in broad brush,Sure.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
So there's really eight sectors and you can just
sort of view them as businessunits.
So Darren Tang, our directorgeneral, is like the CEO of the
corporation.
He's our director general andunder him are four deputy
director generals and fourassistant director generals.
So we have in those eightsectors we have the two
(10:32):
registries, the PCT, and thenthe brands and design, which
covers the Madrid and Hague, sotrademarks and designs.
We have the copyright sector,which manages the copyright law
and information.
We have what we call RNDS, whichis regional and national
development sector, which is thesort of the go between the ones
(10:55):
that manage the relationshipbetween member states and WIPO.
And they also have WIPO Academy, which is the largest IP
offerings for learning anywherein the world, and they do just
everything from soup to nuts.
So it's beginning to end foranybody in their career or
(11:18):
anybody that's just looking forinformation on IP.
Then we have what we callinfrastructure and platforms,
which is the group that handlesthe tools that are used between
IPOs, the IP offices around theworld and WIPO, among other
things.
Then we have global challengesand partnerships.
That's the group that managesthe relationship between WIPO
(11:42):
and all those NGOs like AIPLAand SIPA, but also manages the
relationship between WIPO andall those NGOs like AIPLA and
SEPA, but also manages therelationship between WIPO and
the big UN in New York, wto, whoand all the other bodies like
those.
We have our IP and innovationecosystem sector which manages
(12:06):
the or, that's the house for ourchief economist and all of his
staff IP for business, ip forinnovators, the arbitration
mediation center, the judicialinstitute they're all housed in
that sector.
And then of course you have theadministrative and management
part of the organization whichhas the finance, the IT, the
(12:31):
premises, procurement, security,etc.
So those are the eight sectorsand Darren has his own sort of
front office staff which is ournews and media team, things like
HR, our diplomatic team,diplomatic corps team.
He also has like IOD, so theinternal oversight division,
(12:54):
those ethics office, those kindsof things report up to him and
everything else is spreadthrough those eight sectors huge
operation.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Roughly how many people if you go in the whole
organization it's about 1400.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I think 14 to 1500 oh , that's my thought.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I think epo, of course, is overwhelmed with
examiners.
You don't have the examinerburden, do you?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
that's so we have the , we have the logistics
examiners, the formalitiesexaminers, but it's they're
probably around 200 of those outof the 1500.
So, nothing on the scale of aUSPTO or EPO, etc.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It's about 200 people , so they work hard because
there's a lot of PCT filingnumbers just forever growing.
I think that's right, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yes, last year, 2023, was a slight dip between 2022
to 2023, about one and a halfpercent or so in both filings
and income.
I think we had roughly 200 andI can't remember 275,000 filings
last year and the income wasroughly around 370, 375 million
(14:02):
and that was down.
Each of them were down aboutroughly around one and a half
percent.
We're hoping or not hoping.
We're looking at statistics nowand thinking that there's the
possibility for a slightincrease in second half of this
year.
We did see a slight downturn inthe first half, but we're
(14:23):
seeing the signs for a slightincrease for the second half.
That would bring us back mayberoughly about the same as 2023.
And then, year after year afterthat, we're thinking that we
will again start to see someimprovement in the numbers, both
in filings and in revenue, butit won't be dramatic.
It'll be slight increases.
(14:45):
We're hoping year over year.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
It's actually quite unusual to hear a dip in filings
.
Patents tend to go up and up.
Doing the maths, I guess thatmeans there was a dip in
priority filings 21, 22.
So is there maybe apandemic-ish reason behind that?
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Well, it's the post-pandemic, because our
patent application filings arethe ones that are done in real
time, so not from a year or twoago, where you're looking at the
12-month period, the 18-monthperiod.
So we saw a dip in 2023.
We did not see that dip in 2022.
We did see it still an increase, albeit a smaller increase than
(15:24):
what we had anticipated, but wedid see that increase in 2022,
slight decrease in 2023 andwe're believing right now that
it's probably going to beroughly a break even over 2023
for the end of this year whichis okay as well.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
It's good to hear.
I think there was always goingto be that slight um, that
slight impact of a lot of peoplenot being able to do their day
job in quite the same way.
So it kind of makes sense, Ithink.
The other kind of question,that so we're going to go to the
pct in particular, what are thegrowth plans for it?
We've got, you've got 140something countries.
I always lose.
I can never keep up.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
But 157 pct members, wow, the 193 members of WIPO.
And yes, we have a number ofthings that we're working on.
Really, it boils down to sortof three buckets of things the
outreach to our stakeholders,customer service and customer
experience, and staffdevelopment.
(16:21):
If we look at PCT as a whole,we have several divisions or
multiple divisions.
So in the PCT we have theservices department, so we have
the operations team and in thatteam we are looking at ensuring
that we are as efficient aspossible and where you can't
(16:50):
make your way out of a downturnby constantly reducing costs but
you still have to look at theoverall picture of costs and
efficiency and still maintainthe staff that we have.
So what we've done is movedfrom an application-driven
process to an applicant drivenprocess and we have worked for
the last almost a year and ahalf now at training all of our
(17:13):
operations examiners on a numberof different areas where they
can be the focal point to answerquestions from the stakeholders
, versus having to move themover to a different group to
handle the basic questions onpatent application filings and
issues.
They've also done things likenow that they have, for example,
(17:37):
maybe one or two examiners mayhave a large corporation or a
number of corporations that arebig filers.
They can look and say are weseeing the same problems with
them over and over again?
How can we reach out to them,explain to them what we're
seeing and find a way to resolveit?
So the team inside at WIPOdoesn't need to continuously
(18:01):
resolve those kinds of issues.
We resolve them once and forall with the stakeholder and it
makes the whole process a lotmore efficient.
So we did two pilot teams onthis.
We just finished the pilotteams in the sense of doing an
(18:21):
internal survey to see how thestaff felt about it, and we did
an external survey with a numberof our stakeholders to be sure
that they felt that this wasgoing to be beneficial to them.
Both came back very positive.
So we now turned those twopilot teams into regular
operations teams and we had 10of those overall.
So we did two pilots.
(18:41):
So there's eight remainingteams.
We will do probably four innext year and four the remaining
four the year after.
And a lot of our otherdivisions within the PCT are
really helping out to make surethat these operators operations
examiners are really fullytrained up to speed.
We're getting them upskilled.
(19:03):
They've seemed to really likethe ability to have a chance for
promotion in the kind of workthey're doing, as well as even
promotion in job grades, andit's just worked out really,
really well for us.
So that's operations.
Darren, our director general haddecided to move all of IT
(19:28):
inside WIPO into oneorganization under one umbrella,
which I think was one of thebest decisions he could have
made, but it did raise someissues.
So we had our own PCT IT teamand they were dedicated to the
PCT IT team and they werededicated to the PCT.
(19:48):
So of course people are sayingbut if they go over to a
different organization, are westill going to get the same
support that we have alwaysenjoyed?
And the answer is it's provento be yes, we are getting the
same support.
What we actually did was wesplit up into two pieces.
We sent all of the realdevelopers, type IT, into the
(20:08):
big IT group and we sent thebusiness development team from
IT back into PCT, which is thegroup that reaches out to the
stakeholders to say what is itthat you need from us?
How do we work better together?
And stakeholders in this casecould be primarily IPOs, the IP
(20:28):
offices, or in some cases, couldbe NGOs or could be
stakeholders, but a lot of thework is with the IP offices to
make sure that we are meetingthe needs of our clients
basically.
So I think that actually workedout really well to split these
up into sort of two pieces.
Part of it stayed with PCT,part of it went with IT, and I
(20:53):
can keep going.
If you don't have any questions, at the moment I'll just keep
going through the divisions, butlet me stop there for a moment.
See if you have any questionsquestions.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I'd question the comments actually, or vice versa
, um, the.
So getting the stakeholdersearly makes a lot of sense.
Engaging with them, as you say,as an applicant rather than as
thinking of it as an application, makes tons of sense,
especially as I guess you knowyou guys are first.
You're the very start of thepipeline of the patent process,
so you want to be catchingerrors and helping people out
and getting best practices asearly as possible.
And I think I mean the pct.
(21:28):
Having studied it a few yearsago now, I do remember it was
legendarily tricky trying towork out which receiving office
to use and making up makingyourself an inventor or whatever
the kind of weird tricks thatpeople used to have to make sure
that you could do it.
I always find it quiteperplexing.
(21:49):
So help is really useful topeople.
So thank you on behalf of justabout anybody who's dealt with
the pct system.
Simple prospect trying to tryto bring 157 points of view
together always going to be abit tricky.
I can see that.
Um, and also, I think, lee,we've seen this as well that
seeper.
I think upskilling and movingfrom the idea of an
administrator to the idea,effectively, of a paralegal or
(22:11):
an ip support function issomething that just seems to be
popular wherever you see itisn't it, I think, absolutely
good?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I think, I mean, in part, it's a response, isn't it,
to the way the world just movesso quickly and you and you need
a kind of broad base of skillsacross as as many as you can in
your teams.
So, um, I think, I think we'reonly going to see more and more
of this sort of development, um,and also, of course, we're
getting ai, aren't we?
We're going to get ai.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
That's going to, um, significantly change, um, what
the professional world lookslike, so that I think, yeah, I
think, you are going to see thissort of professional
transformation but it's goodbecause at least, as you say, it
brings enthusiasm, it bringspassion, it makes people excited
about the future, and you needto know where you're going next,
I think.
So that sounds really important.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
It is, and I think for the staff that that has have
been going through the pilotteam upskilling.
I think they've just beenthrilled with their
opportunities and it has reallygiven them kind of a a lease on
their look on their work forWIPO and really kind of excited
them again, and I think that'sjust really positive for
everybody.
You know, willem, you raised anissue about the ability to
(23:17):
understand the PCT process, andone of the things that we've
also been working on is in adifferent division, for One of
the things that we've also beenworking on is in a different
division, for you probably knowMatt Bryan, yeah, and Matt's in
charge of our legal and userresource division.
In that division he's beenworking really hard at things
like e-application guide, thenewsletter, making sure that it
(23:42):
is out there for the people whoreally need it with the
information that they reallyneed.
So we're also working on theother side of it.
In fact, it's Matt's team thathas really done a lot of the
training of the examiners on thetechnical side, the legal,
technical side of what they'redoing.
We've also brought in expertsto teach people how to talk to
(24:03):
our clients, even going that farwith soft skills.
So we're doing a lot of work inthat area as well.
Then we also have a lot ofoutreach that we're doing, both
PCT and EPCT, to the IP officesand the stakeholders.
We're really enhancing ouroutreach capabilities, putting
(24:24):
more resources into the teamthat is managing that, which is
our international cooperationdivision, and we're looking at
this, trying to look at thisvery holistically, because every
part of PCT affects anotherpart of the PCT and there's so
many divisions and these peopleknow each other so well that it
(24:44):
makes it easier to do a lot ofcross-division and
cross-sectoral work with them,to get collaboration across the
PCT house to make that work.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You mentioned there about the interrelatedness of
the PCT and I think complexity Idon't want to make it sound
impossible is actually verymanipulable.
Most of the time it's just whenyou get a weird fact set it can
catch you out.
And, of course, the PCT is aholding pattern For those less
versed in the system.
Listening in the PCT is kind ofa holding pattern or kind of
(25:18):
what I call international patentpending before your patent
application goes into national,regional phase, as we obviously
all know, but incrediblyimportant place, to put it.
As a result.
Um, as you say, you've mostlygot administrative examiners,
but there's a lot of law andsubstantive law sitting behind
the pct and, as lee mentions,there's a lot going on.
For example, there's alwaysconversations about substantive
(25:40):
patent law harmonization.
Are there any big legal changescoming via the PCT that we
should be looking out for?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
I don't know if I would say there's big changes as
much as new things that we'reworking on.
Of course, we have the Patentand Technology Law Division,
which is different than the PCT,and in that division that is
where we have our SCP, which isour Standing Committee on the
Law of Patents, which would bethe place where a lot of the
(26:07):
conversations would take placeamong the member states on
things like harmonization, ipand health, areas where all of
the member states are sayingthese are the topics that we
need to benchmark, the topicsthat we need to understand, and
in the Patent and Technology LawDepartment, this is where those
conversations would take place.
(26:28):
So we just recently came outwith our Guide to Trade Secrets
and Innovation.
I think that was about twoweeks ago and that seems to be
really valuable.
It goes again from soup to nuts.
Right, it goes from the verybeginning of what is a trade
secret to how do you use tradesecrets in collaboration with
(26:49):
patents for your innovation.
We also came out not too longbefore that with our first WIPO
strategic plan for standardessential patents.
This is where WIPO can play apretty significant role of being
the convener of theconversation.
We're not there to tell memberstates what they should do, but
(27:13):
we're there to say here's what'shappening in the world, here
are the procedures and policiesaround SEPs, everything from
what EU did to what the US isdoing, to what China's doing, to
venues and FRAND, the free andor fair.
No, it's FRAND fair andreasonable, non-discriminatory
(27:36):
licensing policies andeverything in between.
So we're looking at a lot ofthose kinds of issues through
that side of the Patent andTechnology Law Department.
On the other side of that samedivision are the, not the treaty
work that's done in the samesection, but in the other side
(27:57):
is the legislative work.
And we do offer advice to ourmember states on their national
IP policies, the patent policies, whether it's, you know, in the
IP office, as a regulation oradministrative rules, especially
for least developed countriesand developing countries where
(28:18):
they may not really have a solidplan or a solid set of policies
to work from.
So we help them get those inplace as well.
And of course, we have thetreaty work, the Patent Law
Treaty and the Budapest Treaty,where we work on, you know,
making sure that somebody whowants to accede to it.
We give them pre-accessionsupport during their time to
(28:42):
accede and then post-accessionsupport to say, you know, now
that you've signed it, what doyou do next?
Because a lot of them won'treally know what to do next, and
so we help them make sure thatthey can implement something
that they just signed up to.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I think that help and support angle of ypo again, you
know we often just think, oh,pct, that's a good way of
keeping your patent bending.
There's so much more going onand you talked also about um,
least developed countries.
Um, I was checking out your Ithink might be your mission
statement.
You serve the world'sinnovators and creators,
ensuring that their ideas travelsafely to the market and
improve lives everywhere.
(29:17):
Is that a recent missionstatement or has that been there
for a while?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
It's a 2022 through 2026 mission statement, so it's
not recent, but we're constantlyreferring to it to make sure
that we are constantly adheringto it, and I think that we are.
Now that we're a couple ofyears into it, or a year and a
half, two years into it, we alldo feel like we are able to
(29:42):
follow that quite well.
But there's so much behind thatstatement of everything that we
do right.
I mean, just as an example, inour IP and innovation ecosystem
group, as well as a couple othersectors they're working on, how
do you support women,entrepreneurs or individuals?
(30:03):
How do you support the youth?
How do you support SMEs,helping them understand why they
even need to considerintellectual property?
So it's taking that to theground, taking IP to the ground
for people to understand how IPcan help them individually and
economically.
You know, if you help a womanin a developing country or least
(30:26):
developed country understandwhy trademarks are so important
to them, we don't talk aboutpatents and trademarks and
designs.
We talk about innovation andcreativity.
And then how do you step themthrough that process from?
They come up with an idea, butthen what?
How do you decide?
Can you get financing?
(30:48):
How do you manufacture?
How do you take it to market?
How do you protect it with IP,like trademarks?
But that comes later, when we'retalking about very instant or
the very first instance is tosay do you have a business plan?
Let us help walk you throughevery step of the way to
commercialization andenforcement.
(31:09):
And so it's a whole process andalmost all of us around the
house are involved in thatentire process, from beginning
to end in some way.
That entire process frombeginning to end in some way.
Wipo Academy, for example, isthere to say, well, we'll, let's
(31:32):
say, put together a group, aparticular group where they've
had to apply.
So out of I don't know 50 or 70women, we might take 20 and say
, let's walk you through thisover time.
We don't just come in and say,for two or three days, we teach
you what this is all about.
We come in and we work withthem, and then we stay with them
for 12 months and then we say,okay, now we're ready to see
(31:52):
what you can do after this timeand figure out how to continue
the work that you've started.
And we come back and we revisitwith them at some later point
in time, but we mentor them fora significant period of time.
What we're looking for areprograms like that that are
repeatable and sustainable.
(32:12):
So if it works in Jordan, doesit work in South America?
If it works in South America,does it work in Africa, south
America, if it works in SouthAmerica, does it work in Africa?
And everyone may need to betailored in some way to the
region or to the group thatwe're working with next, but it
still has to be a baselineprogram that can be tailored and
(32:35):
then repeated and sustained.
Those are the kinds of thingsthat we're looking at doing.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
So, Lisa, can I just pick up just to give Gwilym a
wee break for a moment, becausehe's been bombarding you with
questions and it's quite nicefor me to talk occasionally,
Gwilym.
So I'm really interested in theEDI angle and at CIPA we've
been doing a lot of work aroundthe profession, so how the
profession looks in terms of itsdiversity, how it represents
(33:03):
inventors, how it'srepresentative of the inventor
community, and I know thatyou've been doing a huge amount
of work around women ininventorship.
We touched on some of thatthere.
What can organizations likeSEPA, AIPLA?
So we represent professionals,but there must be things that we
could usefully do to open upthe inventor community to more
(33:24):
diverse and varied people.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
It's a.
It's a really great question,lee.
I meanIPO looking at thediversity of women and
minorities working in WIPO inthe field of IP, versus
externally, looking from WIPOoutside to say, how do we help
women or youth or theunderserved understand what it
(33:58):
means for IP to help themindividually in their own world?
How can they benefiteconomically?
You help one woman and shehelps her community.
If she helps her community, shehelps her region.
If she helps her region, maybeshe can take her product to the
market on a worldwide scale.
So there's really two aspectsto it internal and external.
(34:21):
What I think you guys arereally good at AIPLA and so many
of these other NGOs is helpingwomen in IP understand their
career paths or just theirdevelopment in IP.
What I think you're asking ishow can you guys help with the
(34:41):
IP out to the women who want touse IP?
Exactly that, and there aremany different kinds of ways.
I mean you can collaborate witha WIPO.
We're always looking forpartners to collaborate with,
just on a big scale.
Example of this is we'recollaborating.
(35:01):
I'm the champion for IP andgender at WIPO, so some of this
runs through my team.
It's a small team but wecoordinate around the WIPO house
with some of these things.
But we're working withSheTrades at the ITC.
Shetrades has access, I believe, to around 40,000 women in
trade, but they didn'toriginally have an IP module
(35:26):
inside all of the training thatthey do.
So we're working with them nowto build an IP module for them
that they can insert into theirown trade training of all these
women and it's a huge group.
They are so effective in whatthey do and if you can add the
IP to it, then I think womenwill also benefit from
(35:49):
understanding how IP can thenhelp them also economically and
then ultimately in trade.
But there are a lot of thingsthat organizations like SIPA can
do in collaborating with otherorganizations that are working
in this area, like WIPO.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
I think we'd be really interested in doing that.
I know Gwilym and I have done acouple of podcasts around EDI
and one around.
So we have an initiative in theUK called the STEMET, which is
Women in Science, technology,engineering and Mathematics, and
remember on that podcast wewere talking about women
generally in science there andnot inventorship.
(36:28):
But we learned about the leakypipeline and you get this
significant number of women whowill start off down the pathway
to science and tech careers andthen over time for all sorts of
reasons that diminishes.
Is that the same ininventorship?
Is it that women aren'tinventing or are they inventing
(36:49):
but over time sort of attritiontakes them out of the system?
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Well, I think there's a catch to that question.
I think women do invent.
I think, from my own experience, even being in-house in a large
corporation, a lot of womendon't think that what they've
done is an invention.
So a lot of this is education.
What does it mean to haveinvented something, to be an
innovator or a creator, and thenwhat do you do with that
(37:16):
information?
Do with that information, and Ithink it's really about
education to help them with theprocess of understanding how IP
can work for them or help themeconomically.
You know, I think there's twoaspects to it.
One is, again, you know,helping women who want to move
into the field, like to be apatent agent or patent attorney.
How do you help them come froma STEM background into the field
(37:43):
of IP and, again, versus thosethat are in STEM areas, become
the inventors, the innovators,et cetera, and I think they're
there.
I think what we're finding,though, is a lot of them don't
really know about how IP cansupport them.
I think we estimated about 17.5, 17.7% or so of women inventors
(38:07):
are on PCT applications.
That's pretty low, and I thinkit only went up slightly from
the year before.
That was at the end of 2023.
And I think part of this is wehave to be able to first
understand what the data shows,to know exactly what's going on,
but then we have to be able toknow how to use that data to
(38:31):
help us with improving ouraccess to women in these areas
or any other underserved groupof people in these areas or any
other underserved group ofpeople.
We're doing things here likehaving our first, given that
we've only been working on thisfor about a year.
We're going to have our firstglobal research experts meeting
(38:53):
on improving gender anddiversity in IP and innovation.
We're going to do that thisNovember and our chief economist
and his staff will be pullingthis together of academics, ipo
or IP office other economics,chief economists and their
staffs from other major IPoffices know what information we
(39:22):
need and then how do we gatherit.
How do we benchmark everybody'sbest efforts and the best way
to go about this so that we cando the research and know how to
take the next step forward toreach out to all of these women
and the underserved?
So we'll have a call for paperson that, I think, this month or
early next month, and we'rehoping that this will really be
a big event.
We're hearing a lot around itand it's not just for those
(39:45):
academics, it's for anybody thatwants to participate or listen
in on the work that we're goingto be doing.
The second step is findingpartners.
You know, if we partnered withSEPA, we partner with SheTrades,
we partner with any other NGOor any other IP office, so that
(40:08):
we can enhance and multiply allof our efforts together so that
we have a greater impact andgreater outreach in that area.
And then, of course, for us,the third leg of our strategic
plan for IP, the IP gap, whichis our IP and gender action plan
, is on policies that countrieslike least developing countries,
(40:30):
developing countries and evenothers that are further along
but still don't have a lot goingon in the women and IP area is
what can we do to support themin creating policies at the
national level that can helpwomen and inventors or
innovators and creators so thatthey can get into the system and
(40:53):
learn what they need to do?
Speaker 1 (40:56):
So I know Gwilym's aching to come in with another
question, but just sort of anobservation before I close, and
that's we've been working quiteclosely over the last few years
with Global Win, so the GlobalWomen Inventors Network headed
up by the amazing Bola Olabisi,and I don't know if WIPO's
connected there, but I thinkthat would be a really kind of
useful connection for youbecause Bola's doing some
(41:18):
amazing stuff around showcasingwomen inventors we'd be more
than happy to have thatdiscussion with you, because
we're always looking for ways toto do more and better outreach
and have a greater impact let's,let's, follow that one up
outside the podcast.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Good, I'm over to you , mate yeah, it's just one last
question around around, kind ofthe ldc element that you
mentioned a couple of times, andmore broadly, about the
enormous geographical challengethat I'm going to focus on
geography, not politics, don'tworry.
The enormous geographicalchallenge that you guys face, in
the sense that you've got thisum again, this mission statement
(41:53):
about you know serving theworld's innovators and creators.
But innovators and creators ofany gender or ethnicity in an
LDC face a whole different setof challenges to an innovator
and a creator.
So, like the UK, you ones, buta lot easier, like you, had to
(42:29):
make sure all the women whoinvent get their IP into the
system.
You've got much bigger problemsin some other places.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Well, I think the problems are are more
accentuated.
You see them, you see them, youthink they're bigger problems,
but the bottom line is still thesame as to.
You know, maybe start with thebasic premise how do we get to
the ground, how do we get themessage to the people on the
ground?
And this is where we were at.
What I said earlier is we needto stop saying you need a patent
(42:57):
and you need a trademark andyou need a design, and saying
what have you invented, whathave you innovated or created?
And let's start with that andlet's start with a business plan
.
So we go in through our regionalnational development sector,
where we have a director and adesk officer for every country
that's a member of WIPO, as wellas others that are not, if
(43:20):
they're interested inpotentially becoming a member of
WIPO, as well as others thatare not, if they're interested
in potentially becoming a memberof WIPO and say where are you
at in everything you're doing?
What are your national policies?
Let us help you build anational IP policy.
Let us you know for the womenin IP.
We've actually collected now onour website 200 national
(43:41):
policies of various degrees fromall around the world, so that
people can see what othercountries are looking at doing
and what they are actually doingand maybe reach out and say
which ones have been effective,which ones have not.
So it is a bigger problem tosay it's harder to get into the
least developed countries to sayhow best can we help you?
(44:04):
But we will tailor make anysupport that we can provide to
you to the benefit of whatyou're trying to accomplish,
whether it's a patent law policy, a patent law act, something on
trademarks, something ondesigns, or it's just an overall
very high level at the foreignminister level, national IP
(44:25):
policy that says here's what wewant to do for intellectual
property, for technology, fordata privacy, for enforcement,
whatever it may be, we can helpthem at any scale along the way.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Yeah, and you're right to correct me on trying to
grade problems by size.
I think a different set ofchallenges is a much better way
of putting it.
So thank you, lee, over to you.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Cheers, gwynne.
So, lisa, we're creepingtowards the end of the podcast
with just a few minutes left,and we don't want to take up
more of your time than you'reable to spare for us.
But are you sat there thinking,oh, I wish they'd ask that
question.
Is there anything you want toadd?
Speaker 3 (45:17):
No, I don't think there's anything substantive
that I really want to to share,but I would like to just for to
just tell the audience, I guess,that we just finished our
General Assembly last, at theend or the beginning of last
week, and it was our mostsuccessful General Assembly ever
, from a bunch of differentdirections.
One is it was the most attendedwe had 1400 attendees, with
almost 900 of them in person.
We had the largest number ofministers ever in attendance 21,
(45:40):
mostly from least developingcountries and some from the
developing countries.
We had the most beautifulexhibitions from a number of
member states.
We had so many more bilateralmeetings between White Post
staff and the member state.
I think Darren by himself didover 70 bilateral meetings in
(46:05):
the slightly over a week's timegoing on that, having come a
month or so, a month and a halfor so, after the diplomatic
conference on traditionalknowledge and genetic resources,
where we finished the treaty ina very multilateral process,
(46:31):
which is what we really hadhoped for, really worked out
well, and I think that sameattitude came into the General
Assembly in a very positive way,and so we feel like we just had
one of the best GeneralAssemblies that we've ever had.
So now we'll see what happenswhen we move to the Design Law
(46:54):
Treaty Diplomatic Conference.
That's two in a year when wehaven't had one for however many
years now.
It's an enormous amount of workand effort on the part of WIPO
and the diplomatic staff etcetera.
But this will be.
The Design Law TreatyDiplomatic Conference will be in
Riyadh, saudi Arabia, inNovember.
(47:15):
Law Treaty DiplomaticConference will be in Riyadh,
saudi Arabia, in November and wereally want to see the
consensus building, themultilateral discussions and
ways of working.
So we have a lot of hopes forthe DLT DipCon and it's coming
off of a successful previousDipCon, a great General Assembly
, so we're looking forward tohaving a lot of success at the
(47:38):
DLT as well.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
And I think we're seeing it on social media,
aren't we?
I'm conscious that WIPO'sreally got its social media apps
together LinkedIn, twitter.
Yeah, you're very good attelling us what you're very good
at, which I think is fantastic.
Thank you so much for spendingsome time with us.
We're not quite finished yet,so Gwilym and I like to end the
podcast on a slightly tangentialquestion.
(48:02):
And I've got one, gwilym, I'vegot one.
I'll ask Gwilym and then we'llcome over to you and then Gwilym
will surprise me by asking meback.
It's just a little thing thatwe do.
So, gwilym, this is probablythe podcast where we've had the
most initialisms and acronyms.
On it.
We've had lots and lots andlots of letters or um alphabetic
spaghetti, or, however.
(48:24):
Do you have a favoriteinitialism or acronym?
Doesn't have, doesn't have tobe from word of ip.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
I'm just wondering if you've got a favorite um
acronym I've got a couple thatcome up, um, because they are
I've just remembered what Iprobably can't share, actually
back of my brains, I hope, onyesterday, not appropriate for a
podcast.
But I've got a couple that, um,I love because they're
beautiful words that areabsolutely part of language but
are acronyms and you probablyknow them.
But one is laser, which iscalled light amplification,
(48:51):
where the stimulated emission ofradiation has always made me
happy because that's exactlywhat it is.
And scuba, self-containedunderwater breathing apparatus.
I love that one too.
So those, those are a couplethat come out because they're
actually just great words andthe fact they stand gives them
an extra richness.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
There you go and they just enter the lexicon, don't
they?
Speaker 2 (49:08):
they become part of language and the other one's
from prison.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
I'm not telling you, I'll tell you fair enough that
you've probably said enoughalready.
Lisa, how about you?
Have you got any favouriteacronyms?
Speaker 3 (49:18):
Oh, I would.
I'm just going to say, becauseof where I sit in this chair is
PCT.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
We'll get you a T-shirt.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
So mine is do you remember, probably about seven
or eight years ago, when wethought that SEPA ought to start
to have a strategic plan, welocked council members away in
the old SEPA offices and I gaveyou all a task, and that was to
try and describe what SEPA didin three to five words.
And you came up with four, andnot in the order that we use
(49:53):
them.
But you came up with community,because we bring patent
attorneys together.
Learning, because we supporttheir professional development.
Influence, because we campaign,advocate on their behalf.
And status, because, of course,if you're a fellow CP, you're a
chartered patent attorney.
And then we rearrange thoseletters into SILC.
So, status, influence, learning, community, silc.
(50:17):
So and it just seemed to be soapt for a professional body
that's all about the law for theacronym to be SILC.
So that would be my faith, theone that we used to describe
ourselves.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
It is lovely.
I spent quite a long timecoming up with synonyms for
those words to see what therudest version I could come up
with was.
Thank you for sharing that.
I'm not sure if there's anyanswer.
It's quite funny.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Lisa, thank you so much.
We're at a close.
We always say at the end,though, that if you've listened
to the podcast and you'veenjoyed what you've listened to,
then leave us a little reviewon the podcasting platform of
your choice, and that will helppeople find us, because we want
to grow our audience, willem,don't we?
Speaker 2 (50:54):
Always.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
And we would very much appreciate it if, when it
goes out, you signpost it to allof your WIPO colleagues.
Lisa, that would be amazing,thank you.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
I'd be more than happy to do that.
Thank you for having me.
I'm out.
So, Gwilym, when was the last time that we did a
podcast?
Can you remember?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Not long ago Not long ago, but it was between these
two podcasts you went throughhuge physical danger.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Oh, I played football .
I played football.
Yeah, we played in the SIPAInformals that's the SIPA
students for those who don'tknow, sipa intimately Football
tournament.
There were 17 teams, big oldturnout, so I think we had about
140 people there and we camelast I turned up.
(00:34):
I offered to play in goalbecause, like when I was younger
, it was where everyone used toput me because it was least
damage done.
So I offered to play in goal.
And I was told no, we've got agoalkeeper.
And then I turned up and wasimmediately said are you still
okay to play a goal?
I was like, yeah, I've not gotlong trousers, I've not got long
shirt sleeves.
Have you ever dived?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Have you ever dived on AstroTurf?
No, no, I gather it was a bitspiky, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
You come up like like big carpet burns.
I was absolutely covered incarpet burns, so not to be
recommended, I think.
But no, an enjoyable time washad by all, I think.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
We yeah, my firm sent two teams.
I checked in.
Our B team beat you, oh thanks,and it was a mixed game, of
course, and our female strikerput three past your goalie.
Don't know who it was thatmight have been me.
No, it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
No, I wasn't in goal at that time.
I'd come back to go on pitch.
That was Yemi yeah.
Yeah, I didn't get the name ofyour female striker, but she did
entirely sound me like a lameduck.
She did this nifty littlemanoeuvre thing with her feet
and I just didn't know where Iwas.
I was totally confused.
I fell over.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, that's my response.
My own feet start moving insympathy.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah, it was exactly that.
It was like trying to mirrorthe movements.
Bang down, I went, but no, wedid have a good time, but we did
get soundly beaten by everybodywho played us.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
But was it fun Because it's about taking part
everybody who played us.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
But was it fun Because it's about taking part,
and I played every single minute.
I was on pitch for every minute.
How cool is that, seeing as Iwas the oldest person there?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Oh, you'd be pleased then, because my colleague says
no, I don't think we playedagainst Lee, because there were
no old blokes on the team.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Look at you, I'll take that.
I'll take that.
No, there was very much an oldbloke on the team but, to be
fair, I still move reasonablyfast for an old bloke.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It's those glutes.
We talked about that lastpodcast.
Those glutes, definitely glutes.
Lee Davis and Gwilym Robertsare the two IPs in a pod and you
are listening to a podcast onintellectual property brought to
you by the Chartered Instituteof Patent Determination.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So, ok, second podcast.
Today We've gotisa jorgensenreturning to the podcast for us,
um, because last time we werecorded with lisa and we had a
bit of a sound issue and wecould never, ever get it um
broadcast quality.
So this is um, this is reallyexciting for us, um, we love it
when a guest comes back, evenespecially lisa, when they
didn't actually make it on inthe first place.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Well, welcome to the podcast thank you so much for
having me.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Oh, it's a pleasure, it's a real pleasure.
So where to start off, gwilym?
Where do we want to go firstwith questions for Lisa?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Well, why don't we get Lisa, if you would care to
introduce yourself and tell us alittle about your history and
background, how you got to WIPO?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah, sure, I'd be pleased to.
So let me just start with mywork history, because I think
that will sort of demonstratehow I got to WIPO.
I actually started out in awhole nother career of sales for
Westinghouse and electricalequipment to the nuclear power
industry Oxymoron since I have ascience background and not an
(03:41):
electrical background.
But it worked and I had a greattime and I went to law school
at night.
From there I went down to thatwas in Chicago.
From there I went down toDallas, texas, and started
working for a couple of years asan IP litigator, but after that
I went in-house to STMicroelectronics, a
(04:01):
semiconductor company, where Ispent the next 25 years Wow yeah
.
And in fact I'm now living inGeneva and the story that brings
those two together is theheadquarters of the company I
work for is right down thestreet from where I live ST
Micro.
And after ST I decided to seewhat other things I might like
(04:24):
to do and I went to an NGO inWashington DC for about five and
a half years.
That was AIPLA, the AmericanIntellectual Property Law
Association, and from there,right in the middle of COVID, I
decided to leave AIPLA and comeover to WIPO.
So I moved to.
My husband and I moved overhere during COVID, which was
(04:45):
unique in and of itself becausewe got off the plane and went
straight into quarantine andthen had to try to find a place
to live.
So that was a unique experiencein and of itself.
But I really enjoyed my time atdifferent from ST, but at AIPLA,
where I started to get moreinvolved with outreach to
members of an organization andfelt that coming to WIPO would
(05:08):
be sort of an enhancement ofthat and my ability to work with
both stakeholders and memberstates would be just a great
sort of turn in my career.
And it's turned out to be justthat.
I have loved every minute ofbeing at WIPO.
It's turned out to be just that.
I have loved every minute ofbeing at WIPO.
I'm in charge of one of theeight sectors at the patent and
(05:28):
technology sector, which is thesector that brings in the most
revenue.
About 76% of WIPO's incomecomes in through the PCT.
So that's the background andhow I got to WIPO.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Can I just dwell momentarily on the AIPLA five
and a half years Because I've.
So we met Vincent Garlick backin back in back at Inter Gwilym
and I did some podcasts there,so I had the chance to speak to
Vincent about his experience ofAIPLA.
And it was so nice to speak tosomeone else who's running a
largely voluntary membershipassociation.
How did you find your timeworking with a bunch of
(06:06):
volunteers?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Actually it was amazing because as a volunteer,
they all wanted to really try todo the most that they could for
AIPLA, for the various programs, the committees running the
committees trying to have aninfluence and an impact in the
various IP areas.
And it's just, you know, eitherthat or the volunteers would
(06:29):
also find ways to network toalso help to enhance their own
careers.
Yeah yeah, I think that reallyhelped out a lot too for people
being, you know, any of theseNGO type organizations.
Of course I still believe AIPLAis one of the best
organizations.
Of course I still believe AIPLAis one of the best and, you
know, it really does give peoplean opportunity to meet, to
(06:50):
network, to benchmark and alsoto have a real influence and
impact in the IP areas thatthey're most interested in.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Absolutely.
We enjoy our relationship withAIPLA.
Our American colleagues wereover just a few weeks back and
it's just such an amazing fewdays.
Obviously, we've got lots ofshared interests, particularly
around substantive pattern orharmonization and grace period
and all of those kinds ofconversations that are really
live at the moment that maybe wemight we might perhaps touch on
(07:18):
in the podcast, and I thinkwe're both learning from one
another.
I think we learned that atInter, didn't we?
That there's lots we can takefrom each other.
I think we're probably both thepremier IP professional bodies
in the world.
That's how I would capture it.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
That's nicely put, lee.
I think, if I may, about thehistory as well, is that it's
pretty unique that you've workedin private practice in-house
non-governmental, thengovernmental.
I mean, I don't think there aremany other things you can do in
our world, is there?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I don't know if that's positive or negative, but
yes, that's true.
Yeah, I actually found it to bejust sort of a progression at
each phase and I found coming toWIPO, having that corporate
background in the PCT, wasreally beneficial because in
many ways you know, wipo is verytypical UN organization the
(08:12):
technical side of the UNorganization, and that part's
been a big learning curve for me.
But in another way, wipo, or atleast in the PCT, is very much
like a corporation.
You have to understand finances, you have to understand HR
issues, union issues, how to runan organization, efficiencies
(08:34):
and operations et cetera.
So I think my corporatebackground probably was very
helpful for me in the role thatI'm in now.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
That's interesting and also, I guess, looking out
you kind of work, yourconstituents at WIPO are people
who have patents, people who areaffected by patents and people
who help them get patents, andagain I guess you've got a
little insight into what they'reall thinking.
So presumably you know yourcustomer base very well as well.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, I think that's really true.
I think, from the standpoint ofwhether you're an individual
inventor or an SME or a larger,small corporation, I think I do
have that background to say in acouple or a variety of
different areas, for example inwhy would you need a patent in
the first place, what's it goingto do, how are you going to
(09:25):
benefit from that, to patentstrategies, to IP financing, ip
licensing, and how does the PCTthen fit into all of that?
So I think I think that's true.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah, Maybe moving on a little bit to the PCT side of
of things or the wiper side ofthings, sorry, um, certainly, in
my world of patent attorney,patent practitioner, you hear
wiper.
You basically think, certainlyas a patent attorney, you think
pct, but you've alreadymentioned that you're, you know
you're one of eight sections, umand pct and tech.
Um, I think what you you saidis the bit that, uh, patents and
(10:00):
tech is a bit that that youtouch on um, but what are the
other areas?
Very quickly, in broad brush,Sure.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
So there's really eight sectors and you can just
sort of view them as businessunits.
So Darren Tang, our directorgeneral, is like the CEO of the
corporation.
He's our director general andunder him are four deputy
director generals and fourassistant director generals.
So we have in those eightsectors we have the two
(10:32):
registries, the PCT, and thenthe brands and design, which
covers the Madrid and Hague, sotrademarks and designs.
We have the copyright sector,which manages the copyright law
and information.
We have what we call RNDS, whichis regional and national
development sector, which is thesort of the go between the ones
(10:55):
that manage the relationshipbetween member states and WIPO.
And they also have WIPO Academy, which is the largest IP
offerings for learning anywherein the world, and they do just
everything from soup to nuts.
So it's beginning to end foranybody in their career or
(11:18):
anybody that's just looking forinformation on IP.
Then we have what we callinfrastructure and platforms,
which is the group that handlesthe tools that are used between
IPOs, the IP offices around theworld and WIPO, among other
things.
Then we have global challengesand partnerships.
That's the group that managesthe relationship between WIPO
(11:42):
and all those NGOs like AIPLAand SIPA, but also manages the
relationship between WIPO andall those NGOs like AIPLA and
SEPA, but also manages therelationship between WIPO and
the big UN in New York, wto, whoand all the other bodies like
those.
We have our IP and innovationecosystem sector which manages
(12:06):
the or, that's the house for ourchief economist and all of his
staff IP for business, ip forinnovators, the arbitration
mediation center, the judicialinstitute they're all housed in
that sector.
And then of course you have theadministrative and management
part of the organization whichhas the finance, the IT, the
(12:31):
premises, procurement, security,etc.
So those are the eight sectorsand Darren has his own sort of
front office staff which is ournews and media team, things like
HR, our diplomatic team,diplomatic corps team.
He also has like IOD, so theinternal oversight division,
(12:54):
those ethics office, those kindsof things report up to him and
everything else is spreadthrough those eight sectors huge
operation.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Roughly how many people if you go in the whole
organization it's about 1400.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I think 14 to 1500 oh , that's my thought.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I think epo, of course, is overwhelmed with
examiners.
You don't have the examinerburden, do you?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
that's so we have the , we have the logistics
examiners, the formalitiesexaminers, but it's they're
probably around 200 of those outof the 1500.
So, nothing on the scale of aUSPTO or EPO, etc.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It's about 200 people , so they work hard because
there's a lot of PCT filingnumbers just forever growing.
I think that's right, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yes, last year, 2023, was a slight dip between 2022
to 2023, about one and a halfpercent or so in both filings
and income.
I think we had roughly 200 andI can't remember 275,000 filings
last year and the income wasroughly around 370, 375 million
(14:02):
and that was down.
Each of them were down aboutroughly around one and a half
percent.
We're hoping or not hoping.
We're looking at statistics nowand thinking that there's the
possibility for a slightincrease in second half of this
year.
We did see a slight downturn inthe first half, but we're
(14:23):
seeing the signs for a slightincrease for the second half.
That would bring us back mayberoughly about the same as 2023.
And then, year after year afterthat, we're thinking that we
will again start to see someimprovement in the numbers, both
in filings and in revenue, butit won't be dramatic.
It'll be slight increases.
(14:45):
We're hoping year over year.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
It's actually quite unusual to hear a dip in filings
.
Patents tend to go up and up.
Doing the maths, I guess thatmeans there was a dip in
priority filings 21, 22.
So is there maybe apandemic-ish reason behind that?
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Well, it's the post-pandemic, because our
patent application filings arethe ones that are done in real
time, so not from a year or twoago, where you're looking at the
12-month period, the 18-monthperiod.
So we saw a dip in 2023.
We did not see that dip in 2022.
We did see it still an increase, albeit a smaller increase than
(15:24):
what we had anticipated, but wedid see that increase in 2022,
slight decrease in 2023 andwe're believing right now that
it's probably going to beroughly a break even over 2023
for the end of this year whichis okay as well.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
It's good to hear.
I think there was always goingto be that slight um, that
slight impact of a lot of peoplenot being able to do their day
job in quite the same way.
So it kind of makes sense, Ithink.
The other kind of question,that so we're going to go to the
pct in particular, what are thegrowth plans for it?
We've got, you've got 140something countries.
I always lose.
I can never keep up.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
But 157 pct members, wow, the 193 members of WIPO.
And yes, we have a number ofthings that we're working on.
Really, it boils down to sortof three buckets of things the
outreach to our stakeholders,customer service and customer
experience, and staffdevelopment.
(16:21):
If we look at PCT as a whole,we have several divisions or
multiple divisions.
So in the PCT we have theservices department, so we have
the operations team and in thatteam we are looking at ensuring
that we are as efficient aspossible and where you can't
(16:50):
make your way out of a downturnby constantly reducing costs but
you still have to look at theoverall picture of costs and
efficiency and still maintainthe staff that we have.
So what we've done is movedfrom an application-driven
process to an applicant drivenprocess and we have worked for
the last almost a year and ahalf now at training all of our
(17:13):
operations examiners on a numberof different areas where they
can be the focal point to answerquestions from the stakeholders
, versus having to move themover to a different group to
handle the basic questions onpatent application filings and
issues.
They've also done things likenow that they have, for example,
(17:37):
maybe one or two examiners mayhave a large corporation or a
number of corporations that arebig filers.
They can look and say are weseeing the same problems with
them over and over again?
How can we reach out to them,explain to them what we're
seeing and find a way to resolveit?
So the team inside at WIPOdoesn't need to continuously
(18:01):
resolve those kinds of issues.
We resolve them once and forall with the stakeholder and it
makes the whole process a lotmore efficient.
So we did two pilot teams onthis.
We just finished the pilotteams in the sense of doing an
(18:21):
internal survey to see how thestaff felt about it, and we did
an external survey with a numberof our stakeholders to be sure
that they felt that this wasgoing to be beneficial to them.
Both came back very positive.
So we now turned those twopilot teams into regular
operations teams and we had 10of those overall.
So we did two pilots.
(18:41):
So there's eight remainingteams.
We will do probably four innext year and four the remaining
four the year after.
And a lot of our otherdivisions within the PCT are
really helping out to make surethat these operators operations
examiners are really fullytrained up to speed.
We're getting them upskilled.
(19:03):
They've seemed to really likethe ability to have a chance for
promotion in the kind of workthey're doing, as well as even
promotion in job grades, andit's just worked out really,
really well for us.
So that's operations.
Darren, our director general haddecided to move all of IT
(19:28):
inside WIPO into oneorganization under one umbrella,
which I think was one of thebest decisions he could have
made, but it did raise someissues.
So we had our own PCT IT teamand they were dedicated to the
PCT IT team and they werededicated to the PCT.
(19:48):
So of course people are sayingbut if they go over to a
different organization, are westill going to get the same
support that we have alwaysenjoyed?
And the answer is it's provento be yes, we are getting the
same support.
What we actually did was wesplit up into two pieces.
We sent all of the realdevelopers, type IT, into the
(20:08):
big IT group and we sent thebusiness development team from
IT back into PCT, which is thegroup that reaches out to the
stakeholders to say what is itthat you need from us?
How do we work better together?
And stakeholders in this casecould be primarily IPOs, the IP
(20:28):
offices, or in some cases, couldbe NGOs or could be
stakeholders, but a lot of thework is with the IP offices to
make sure that we are meetingthe needs of our clients
basically.
So I think that actually workedout really well to split these
up into sort of two pieces.
Part of it stayed with PCT,part of it went with IT, and I
(20:53):
can keep going.
If you don't have any questions, at the moment I'll just keep
going through the divisions, butlet me stop there for a moment.
See if you have any questionsquestions.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I'd question the comments actually, or vice versa
, um, the.
So getting the stakeholdersearly makes a lot of sense.
Engaging with them, as you say,as an applicant rather than as
thinking of it as an application, makes tons of sense,
especially as I guess you knowyou guys are first.
You're the very start of thepipeline of the patent process,
so you want to be catchingerrors and helping people out
and getting best practices asearly as possible.
And I think I mean the pct.
(21:28):
Having studied it a few yearsago now, I do remember it was
legendarily tricky trying towork out which receiving office
to use and making up makingyourself an inventor or whatever
the kind of weird tricks thatpeople used to have to make sure
that you could do it.
I always find it quiteperplexing.
(21:49):
So help is really useful topeople.
So thank you on behalf of justabout anybody who's dealt with
the pct system.
Simple prospect trying to tryto bring 157 points of view
together always going to be abit tricky.
I can see that.
Um, and also, I think, lee,we've seen this as well that
seeper.
I think upskilling and movingfrom the idea of an
administrator to the idea,effectively, of a paralegal or
(22:11):
an ip support function issomething that just seems to be
popular wherever you see itisn't it, I think, absolutely
good?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I think, I mean, in part, it's a response, isn't it,
to the way the world just movesso quickly and you and you need
a kind of broad base of skillsacross as as many as you can in
your teams.
So, um, I think, I think we'reonly going to see more and more
of this sort of development, um,and also, of course, we're
getting ai, aren't we?
We're going to get ai.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
That's going to, um, significantly change, um, what
the professional world lookslike, so that I think, yeah, I
think, you are going to see thissort of professional
transformation but it's goodbecause at least, as you say, it
brings enthusiasm, it bringspassion, it makes people excited
about the future, and you needto know where you're going next,
I think.
So that sounds really important.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
It is, and I think for the staff that that has have
been going through the pilotteam upskilling.
I think they've just beenthrilled with their
opportunities and it has reallygiven them kind of a a lease on
their look on their work forWIPO and really kind of excited
them again, and I think that'sjust really positive for
everybody.
You know, willem, you raised anissue about the ability to
(23:17):
understand the PCT process, andone of the things that we've
also been working on is in adifferent division, for One of
the things that we've also beenworking on is in a different
division, for you probably knowMatt Bryan, yeah, and Matt's in
charge of our legal and userresource division.
In that division he's beenworking really hard at things
like e-application guide, thenewsletter, making sure that it
(23:42):
is out there for the people whoreally need it with the
information that they reallyneed.
So we're also working on theother side of it.
In fact, it's Matt's team thathas really done a lot of the
training of the examiners on thetechnical side, the legal,
technical side of what they'redoing.
We've also brought in expertsto teach people how to talk to
(24:03):
our clients, even going that farwith soft skills.
So we're doing a lot of work inthat area as well.
Then we also have a lot ofoutreach that we're doing, both
PCT and EPCT, to the IP officesand the stakeholders.
We're really enhancing ouroutreach capabilities, putting
(24:24):
more resources into the teamthat is managing that, which is
our international cooperationdivision, and we're looking at
this, trying to look at thisvery holistically, because every
part of PCT affects anotherpart of the PCT and there's so
many divisions and these peopleknow each other so well that it
(24:44):
makes it easier to do a lot ofcross-division and
cross-sectoral work with them,to get collaboration across the
PCT house to make that work.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You mentioned there about the interrelatedness of
the PCT and I think complexity Idon't want to make it sound
impossible is actually verymanipulable.
Most of the time it's just whenyou get a weird fact set it can
catch you out.
And, of course, the PCT is aholding pattern For those less
versed in the system.
Listening in the PCT is kind ofa holding pattern or kind of
(25:18):
what I call international patentpending before your patent
application goes into national,regional phase, as we obviously
all know, but incrediblyimportant place, to put it.
As a result.
Um, as you say, you've mostlygot administrative examiners,
but there's a lot of law andsubstantive law sitting behind
the pct and, as lee mentions,there's a lot going on.
For example, there's alwaysconversations about substantive
(25:40):
patent law harmonization.
Are there any big legal changescoming via the PCT that we
should be looking out for?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
I don't know if I would say there's big changes as
much as new things that we'reworking on.
Of course, we have the Patentand Technology Law Division,
which is different than the PCT,and in that division that is
where we have our SCP, which isour Standing Committee on the
Law of Patents, which would bethe place where a lot of the
(26:07):
conversations would take placeamong the member states on
things like harmonization, ipand health, areas where all of
the member states are sayingthese are the topics that we
need to benchmark, the topicsthat we need to understand, and
in the Patent and Technology LawDepartment, this is where those
conversations would take place.
(26:28):
So we just recently came outwith our Guide to Trade Secrets
and Innovation.
I think that was about twoweeks ago and that seems to be
really valuable.
It goes again from soup to nuts.
Right, it goes from the verybeginning of what is a trade
secret to how do you use tradesecrets in collaboration with
(26:49):
patents for your innovation.
We also came out not too longbefore that with our first WIPO
strategic plan for standardessential patents.
This is where WIPO can play apretty significant role of being
the convener of theconversation.
We're not there to tell memberstates what they should do, but
(27:13):
we're there to say here's what'shappening in the world, here
are the procedures and policiesaround SEPs, everything from
what EU did to what the US isdoing, to what China's doing, to
venues and FRAND, the free andor fair.
No, it's FRAND fair andreasonable, non-discriminatory
(27:36):
licensing policies andeverything in between.
So we're looking at a lot ofthose kinds of issues through
that side of the Patent andTechnology Law Department.
On the other side of that samedivision are the, not the treaty
work that's done in the samesection, but in the other side
(27:57):
is the legislative work.
And we do offer advice to ourmember states on their national
IP policies, the patent policies, whether it's, you know, in the
IP office, as a regulation oradministrative rules, especially
for least developed countriesand developing countries where
(28:18):
they may not really have a solidplan or a solid set of policies
to work from.
So we help them get those inplace as well.
And of course, we have thetreaty work, the Patent Law
Treaty and the Budapest Treaty,where we work on, you know,
making sure that somebody whowants to accede to it.
We give them pre-accessionsupport during their time to
(28:42):
accede and then post-accessionsupport to say, you know, now
that you've signed it, what doyou do next?
Because a lot of them won'treally know what to do next, and
so we help them make sure thatthey can implement something
that they just signed up to.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I think that help and support angle of ypo again, you
know we often just think, oh,pct, that's a good way of
keeping your patent bending.
There's so much more going onand you talked also about um,
least developed countries.
Um, I was checking out your Ithink might be your mission
statement.
You serve the world'sinnovators and creators,
ensuring that their ideas travelsafely to the market and
improve lives everywhere.
(29:17):
Is that a recent missionstatement or has that been there
for a while?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
It's a 2022 through 2026 mission statement, so it's
not recent, but we're constantlyreferring to it to make sure
that we are constantly adheringto it, and I think that we are.
Now that we're a couple ofyears into it, or a year and a
half, two years into it, we alldo feel like we are able to
(29:42):
follow that quite well.
But there's so much behind thatstatement of everything that we
do right.
I mean, just as an example, inour IP and innovation ecosystem
group, as well as a couple othersectors they're working on, how
do you support women,entrepreneurs or individuals?
(30:03):
How do you support the youth?
How do you support SMEs,helping them understand why they
even need to considerintellectual property?
So it's taking that to theground, taking IP to the ground
for people to understand how IPcan help them individually and
economically.
You know, if you help a womanin a developing country or least
(30:26):
developed country understandwhy trademarks are so important
to them, we don't talk aboutpatents and trademarks and
designs.
We talk about innovation andcreativity.
And then how do you step themthrough that process from?
They come up with an idea, butthen what?
How do you decide?
Can you get financing?
(30:48):
How do you manufacture?
How do you take it to market?
How do you protect it with IP,like trademarks?
But that comes later, when we'retalking about very instant or
the very first instance is tosay do you have a business plan?
Let us help walk you throughevery step of the way to
commercialization andenforcement.
(31:09):
And so it's a whole process andalmost all of us around the
house are involved in thatentire process, from beginning
to end in some way.
That entire process frombeginning to end in some way.
Wipo Academy, for example, isthere to say, well, we'll, let's
(31:32):
say, put together a group, aparticular group where they've
had to apply.
So out of I don't know 50 or 70women, we might take 20 and say
, let's walk you through thisover time.
We don't just come in and say,for two or three days, we teach
you what this is all about.
We come in and we work withthem, and then we stay with them
for 12 months and then we say,okay, now we're ready to see
(31:52):
what you can do after this timeand figure out how to continue
the work that you've started.
And we come back and we revisitwith them at some later point
in time, but we mentor them fora significant period of time.
What we're looking for areprograms like that that are
repeatable and sustainable.
(32:12):
So if it works in Jordan, doesit work in South America?
If it works in South America,does it work in Africa, south
America, if it works in SouthAmerica, does it work in Africa?
And everyone may need to betailored in some way to the
region or to the group thatwe're working with next, but it
still has to be a baselineprogram that can be tailored and
(32:35):
then repeated and sustained.
Those are the kinds of thingsthat we're looking at doing.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
So, Lisa, can I just pick up just to give Gwilym a
wee break for a moment, becausehe's been bombarding you with
questions and it's quite nicefor me to talk occasionally,
Gwilym.
So I'm really interested in theEDI angle and at CIPA we've
been doing a lot of work aroundthe profession, so how the
profession looks in terms of itsdiversity, how it represents
(33:03):
inventors, how it'srepresentative of the inventor
community, and I know thatyou've been doing a huge amount
of work around women ininventorship.
We touched on some of thatthere.
What can organizations likeSEPA, AIPLA?
So we represent professionals,but there must be things that we
could usefully do to open upthe inventor community to more
(33:24):
diverse and varied people.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
It's a.
It's a really great question,lee.
I meanIPO looking at thediversity of women and
minorities working in WIPO inthe field of IP, versus
externally, looking from WIPOoutside to say, how do we help
women or youth or theunderserved understand what it
(33:58):
means for IP to help themindividually in their own world?
How can they benefiteconomically?
You help one woman and shehelps her community.
If she helps her community, shehelps her region.
If she helps her region, maybeshe can take her product to the
market on a worldwide scale.
So there's really two aspectsto it internal and external.
(34:21):
What I think you guys arereally good at AIPLA and so many
of these other NGOs is helpingwomen in IP understand their
career paths or just theirdevelopment in IP.
What I think you're asking ishow can you guys help with the
(34:41):
IP out to the women who want touse IP?
Exactly that, and there aremany different kinds of ways.
I mean you can collaborate witha WIPO.
We're always looking forpartners to collaborate with,
just on a big scale.
Example of this is we'recollaborating.
(35:01):
I'm the champion for IP andgender at WIPO, so some of this
runs through my team.
It's a small team but wecoordinate around the WIPO house
with some of these things.
But we're working withSheTrades at the ITC.
Shetrades has access, I believe, to around 40,000 women in
trade, but they didn'toriginally have an IP module
(35:26):
inside all of the training thatthey do.
So we're working with them nowto build an IP module for them
that they can insert into theirown trade training of all these
women and it's a huge group.
They are so effective in whatthey do and if you can add the
IP to it, then I think womenwill also benefit from
(35:49):
understanding how IP can thenhelp them also economically and
then ultimately in trade.
But there are a lot of thingsthat organizations like SIPA can
do in collaborating with otherorganizations that are working
in this area, like WIPO.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
I think we'd be really interested in doing that.
I know Gwilym and I have done acouple of podcasts around EDI
and one around.
So we have an initiative in theUK called the STEMET, which is
Women in Science, technology,engineering and Mathematics, and
remember on that podcast wewere talking about women
generally in science there andnot inventorship.
(36:28):
But we learned about the leakypipeline and you get this
significant number of women whowill start off down the pathway
to science and tech careers andthen over time for all sorts of
reasons that diminishes.
Is that the same ininventorship?
Is it that women aren'tinventing or are they inventing
(36:49):
but over time sort of attritiontakes them out of the system?
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Well, I think there's a catch to that question.
I think women do invent.
I think, from my own experience, even being in-house in a large
corporation, a lot of womendon't think that what they've
done is an invention.
So a lot of this is education.
What does it mean to haveinvented something, to be an
innovator or a creator, and thenwhat do you do with that
(37:16):
information?
Do with that information, and Ithink it's really about
education to help them with theprocess of understanding how IP
can work for them or help themeconomically.
You know, I think there's twoaspects to it.
One is, again, you know,helping women who want to move
into the field, like to be apatent agent or patent attorney.
How do you help them come froma STEM background into the field
(37:43):
of IP and, again, versus thosethat are in STEM areas, become
the inventors, the innovators,et cetera, and I think they're
there.
I think what we're finding,though, is a lot of them don't
really know about how IP cansupport them.
I think we estimated about 17.5, 17.7% or so of women inventors
(38:07):
are on PCT applications.
That's pretty low, and I thinkit only went up slightly from
the year before.
That was at the end of 2023.
And I think part of this is wehave to be able to first
understand what the data shows,to know exactly what's going on,
but then we have to be able toknow how to use that data to
(38:31):
help us with improving ouraccess to women in these areas
or any other underserved groupof people in these areas or any
other underserved group ofpeople.
We're doing things here likehaving our first, given that
we've only been working on thisfor about a year.
We're going to have our firstglobal research experts meeting
(38:53):
on improving gender anddiversity in IP and innovation.
We're going to do that thisNovember and our chief economist
and his staff will be pullingthis together of academics, ipo
or IP office other economics,chief economists and their
staffs from other major IPoffices know what information we
(39:22):
need and then how do we gatherit.
How do we benchmark everybody'sbest efforts and the best way
to go about this so that we cando the research and know how to
take the next step forward toreach out to all of these women
and the underserved?
So we'll have a call for paperson that, I think, this month or
early next month, and we'rehoping that this will really be
a big event.
We're hearing a lot around itand it's not just for those
(39:45):
academics, it's for anybody thatwants to participate or listen
in on the work that we're goingto be doing.
The second step is findingpartners.
You know, if we partnered withSEPA, we partner with SheTrades,
we partner with any other NGOor any other IP office, so that
(40:08):
we can enhance and multiply allof our efforts together so that
we have a greater impact andgreater outreach in that area.
And then, of course, for us,the third leg of our strategic
plan for IP, the IP gap, whichis our IP and gender action plan
, is on policies that countrieslike least developing countries,
(40:30):
developing countries and evenothers that are further along
but still don't have a lot goingon in the women and IP area is
what can we do to support themin creating policies at the
national level that can helpwomen and inventors or
innovators and creators so thatthey can get into the system and
(40:53):
learn what they need to do?
Speaker 1 (40:56):
So I know Gwilym's aching to come in with another
question, but just sort of anobservation before I close, and
that's we've been working quiteclosely over the last few years
with Global Win, so the GlobalWomen Inventors Network headed
up by the amazing Bola Olabisi,and I don't know if WIPO's
connected there, but I thinkthat would be a really kind of
useful connection for youbecause Bola's doing some
(41:18):
amazing stuff around showcasingwomen inventors we'd be more
than happy to have thatdiscussion with you, because
we're always looking for ways toto do more and better outreach
and have a greater impact let's,let's, follow that one up
outside the podcast.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Good, I'm over to you , mate yeah, it's just one last
question around around, kind ofthe ldc element that you
mentioned a couple of times, andmore broadly, about the
enormous geographical challengethat I'm going to focus on
geography, not politics, don'tworry.
The enormous geographicalchallenge that you guys face, in
the sense that you've got thisum again, this mission statement
(41:53):
about you know serving theworld's innovators and creators.
But innovators and creators ofany gender or ethnicity in an
LDC face a whole different setof challenges to an innovator
and a creator.
So, like the UK, you ones, buta lot easier, like you, had to
(42:29):
make sure all the women whoinvent get their IP into the
system.
You've got much bigger problemsin some other places.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Well, I think the problems are are more
accentuated.
You see them, you see them, youthink they're bigger problems,
but the bottom line is still thesame as to.
You know, maybe start with thebasic premise how do we get to
the ground, how do we get themessage to the people on the
ground?
And this is where we were at.
What I said earlier is we needto stop saying you need a patent
(42:57):
and you need a trademark andyou need a design, and saying
what have you invented, whathave you innovated or created?
And let's start with that andlet's start with a business plan
.
So we go in through our regionalnational development sector,
where we have a director and adesk officer for every country
that's a member of WIPO, as wellas others that are not, if
(43:20):
they're interested inpotentially becoming a member of
WIPO, as well as others thatare not, if they're interested
in potentially becoming a memberof WIPO and say where are you
at in everything you're doing?
What are your national policies?
Let us help you build anational IP policy.
Let us you know for the womenin IP.
We've actually collected now onour website 200 national
(43:41):
policies of various degrees fromall around the world, so that
people can see what othercountries are looking at doing
and what they are actually doingand maybe reach out and say
which ones have been effective,which ones have not.
So it is a bigger problem tosay it's harder to get into the
least developed countries to sayhow best can we help you?
(44:04):
But we will tailor make anysupport that we can provide to
you to the benefit of whatyou're trying to accomplish,
whether it's a patent law policy, a patent law act, something on
trademarks, something ondesigns, or it's just an overall
very high level at the foreignminister level, national IP
(44:25):
policy that says here's what wewant to do for intellectual
property, for technology, fordata privacy, for enforcement,
whatever it may be, we can helpthem at any scale along the way.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Yeah, and you're right to correct me on trying to
grade problems by size.
I think a different set ofchallenges is a much better way
of putting it.
So thank you, lee, over to you.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Cheers, gwynne.
So, lisa, we're creepingtowards the end of the podcast
with just a few minutes left,and we don't want to take up
more of your time than you'reable to spare for us.
But are you sat there thinking,oh, I wish they'd ask that
question.
Is there anything you want toadd?
Speaker 3 (45:17):
No, I don't think there's anything substantive
that I really want to to share,but I would like to just for to
just tell the audience, I guess,that we just finished our
General Assembly last, at theend or the beginning of last
week, and it was our mostsuccessful General Assembly ever
, from a bunch of differentdirections.
One is it was the most attendedwe had 1400 attendees, with
almost 900 of them in person.
We had the largest number ofministers ever in attendance 21,
(45:40):
mostly from least developingcountries and some from the
developing countries.
We had the most beautifulexhibitions from a number of
member states.
We had so many more bilateralmeetings between White Post
staff and the member state.
I think Darren by himself didover 70 bilateral meetings in
(46:05):
the slightly over a week's timegoing on that, having come a
month or so, a month and a halfor so, after the diplomatic
conference on traditionalknowledge and genetic resources,
where we finished the treaty ina very multilateral process,
(46:31):
which is what we really hadhoped for, really worked out
well, and I think that sameattitude came into the General
Assembly in a very positive way,and so we feel like we just had
one of the best GeneralAssemblies that we've ever had.
So now we'll see what happenswhen we move to the Design Law
(46:54):
Treaty Diplomatic Conference.
That's two in a year when wehaven't had one for however many
years now.
It's an enormous amount of workand effort on the part of WIPO
and the diplomatic staff etcetera.
But this will be.
The Design Law TreatyDiplomatic Conference will be in
Riyadh, saudi Arabia, inNovember.
(47:15):
Law Treaty DiplomaticConference will be in Riyadh,
saudi Arabia, in November and wereally want to see the
consensus building, themultilateral discussions and
ways of working.
So we have a lot of hopes forthe DLT DipCon and it's coming
off of a successful previousDipCon, a great General Assembly
, so we're looking forward tohaving a lot of success at the
(47:38):
DLT as well.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
And I think we're seeing it on social media,
aren't we?
I'm conscious that WIPO'sreally got its social media apps
together LinkedIn, twitter.
Yeah, you're very good attelling us what you're very good
at, which I think is fantastic.
Thank you so much for spendingsome time with us.
We're not quite finished yet,so Gwilym and I like to end the
podcast on a slightly tangentialquestion.
(48:02):
And I've got one, gwilym, I'vegot one.
I'll ask Gwilym and then we'llcome over to you and then Gwilym
will surprise me by asking meback.
It's just a little thing thatwe do.
So, gwilym, this is probablythe podcast where we've had the
most initialisms and acronyms.
On it.
We've had lots and lots andlots of letters or um alphabetic
spaghetti, or, however.
(48:24):
Do you have a favoriteinitialism or acronym?
Doesn't have, doesn't have tobe from word of ip.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
I'm just wondering if you've got a favorite um
acronym I've got a couple thatcome up, um, because they are
I've just remembered what Iprobably can't share, actually
back of my brains, I hope, onyesterday, not appropriate for a
podcast.
But I've got a couple that, um,I love because they're
beautiful words that areabsolutely part of language but
are acronyms and you probablyknow them.
But one is laser, which iscalled light amplification,
(48:51):
where the stimulated emission ofradiation has always made me
happy because that's exactlywhat it is.
And scuba, self-containedunderwater breathing apparatus.
I love that one too.
So those, those are a couplethat come out because they're
actually just great words andthe fact they stand gives them
an extra richness.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
There you go and they just enter the lexicon, don't
they?
Speaker 2 (49:08):
they become part of language and the other one's
from prison.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
I'm not telling you, I'll tell you fair enough that
you've probably said enoughalready.
Lisa, how about you?
Have you got any favouriteacronyms?
Speaker 3 (49:18):
Oh, I would.
I'm just going to say, becauseof where I sit in this chair is
PCT.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
We'll get you a T-shirt.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
So mine is do you remember, probably about seven
or eight years ago, when wethought that SEPA ought to start
to have a strategic plan, welocked council members away in
the old SEPA offices and I gaveyou all a task, and that was to
try and describe what SEPA didin three to five words.
And you came up with four, andnot in the order that we use
(49:53):
them.
But you came up with community,because we bring patent
attorneys together.
Learning, because we supporttheir professional development.
Influence, because we campaign,advocate on their behalf.
And status, because, of course,if you're a fellow CP, you're a
chartered patent attorney.
And then we rearrange thoseletters into SILC.
So, status, influence, learning, community, silc.
(50:17):
So and it just seemed to be soapt for a professional body
that's all about the law for theacronym to be SILC.
So that would be my faith, theone that we used to describe
ourselves.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
It is lovely.
I spent quite a long timecoming up with synonyms for
those words to see what therudest version I could come up
with was.
Thank you for sharing that.
I'm not sure if there's anyanswer.
It's quite funny.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Lisa, thank you so much.
We're at a close.
We always say at the end,though, that if you've listened
to the podcast and you'veenjoyed what you've listened to,
then leave us a little reviewon the podcasting platform of
your choice, and that will helppeople find us, because we want
to grow our audience, willem,don't we?
Speaker 2 (50:54):
Always.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
And we would very much appreciate it if, when it
goes out, you signpost it to allof your WIPO colleagues.
Lisa, that would be amazing,thank you.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
I'd be more than happy to do that.
Thank you for having me.
I'm out.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.