Vietnam attends 56th WIPO General Assemblies

Geneva (VNA) – Vietnam is participating in the fifty-sixth series of meetings of the Assemblies of the Member States of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland, from October 3-11.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, WIPO Director General Francis Gurry said the organisation had contributed to protecting intellectual property (IP) over the past year.

Representatives of 189 member countries will discuss difficulties in the field, he added, naming “complexity” as the major challenge.

“The nature of intellectual property itself and its role in an economy in which value resides increasingly in intellectual assets, and in which technology and innovation are developing at accelerating speeds, is now inherently more complex”, he said.

Deputy Minister of Science and Technology and Director General of the National Office of Intellectual Property Tran Viet Thanh said Vietnam welcomes the accomplishments that WIPO has gained and believes the organisation is the only international one able to create a political forum to build a global IP system.

Vietnam vows to play an active role in setting an effective IP rights protection in the country and hopes to cooperate with the WIPO and its partners in the years to come, he said.

The Southeast Asian nation also wants to receive WIPO assistance in building a national IP strategy and participate in international IP treaties.

On the sidelines of the event, the Vietnamese delegation had bilateral meetings with partners from Singapore, Australia, the US, the European Patent Office, the US Patent and Trademark Office, and the French National Institute of Industrial Property.

At a separate meeting with WIPO Director General Francis Gurry, Deputy Minister Thanh thanked the organisation for helping Vietnam improve IP human resources and infrastructure.-VNA