| WIPO Docket | May 23, 2022 |  | | | | | | The WIPO Judicial Institute newsletter |  | Image: WIPO/E. Berrod. The WIPO Conference Hall, where the annual WIPO IP Judges Forum will again take place in 2022. WIPO Docket is a newsletter on WIPO’s work to support judiciaries, as well as resources of relevance to the judicial administration of IP disputes worldwide. Readers are welcome to contact us to share relevant IP judicial developments. | | | Save the Date! 2022 WIPO Intellectual Property Judges Forum The 2022 WIPO IP Judges Forum will take place on November 16 to 18, 2022 in hybrid form: in person at the WIPO Headquarters in Geneva, with the additional option to participate virtually. The provisional program, on the theme of Judging in an Ever Changing World, is published on our webpage and will continue to be updated with more details. Sessions will address issues arising in the interface of IP and new technologies, remedies, IP case management strategies, and judgment writing. The role of the judiciary in IP, innovation and creative ecosystems will also be explored, and a special guest speaker will explore artificial intelligence and its role in judicial decision making. Registration for the Forum is now open! Participation is open to members of the judiciary, and members of quasi-judicial / administrative tribunals that adjudicate IP disputes. Judges who wish to register but have not received a secure code are invited to contact the WIPO Judicial Institute.  May 23 and 24: WIPO Symposium on Trade Secrets and Innovation The Second WIPO Symposium on Trade Secrets and Innovation will explore the role of trade secrets and innovation from policy, legal and business perspectives. It will also take a closer look at how patent systems, trade secret systems and others are intertwined in knowledge creation and dissemination in the wider context of the IP system. And last but not least, discussions on topical issues will address how digital information is increasingly driving the international innovation ecosystem – and the role of trade secrets in the development and dissemination of medical technologies. The detailed program is available on the Symposium webpage, and can be followed virtually via WIPO webcasting and video-on-demand. New Cooperations Launched Continuing the establishment of frameworks for sustainable collaborations with the national judicial authorities of Member States, WIPO Director General Daren Tang met with Egypt’s Minister of Justice Omar Marawan on March 8, 2022. The conversation addressed avenues for enhancing cooperation between the Egyptian Ministry of Justice and WIPO, to support the judicial administration of IP cases in Egypt.
Image: Omar Marawan, Minister of Justice of Egypt and and Daren Tang, Director General of WIPO, met at WIPO Headquarters in Geneva. Copyright: WIPO/E. Berrod. | The United Republic of Tanzania joins WIPO Lex-Judgments
We are delighted that WIPO Lex-Judgments continues to grow, with the recent addition of leading IP decisions of the United Republic of Tanzania. Access the database to browse this and other collections. WIPO Lex-Judgments is a database that provides open and free-of-charge online access to leading judicial decisions in IP from around the world, selected directly by each country’s national authority. There are currently 25 participating jurisdictions with over 900 decisions. | | | | WIPO Academy General Distance Learning Course on IP for Judges
The next session of the WIPO Academy’s General Distance Learning Course on Intellectual Property for Judges will be offered in English, French and Spanish, from September 8 to October 31, 2022. This 75‑hour course covers all major areas of IP, and is provided free-of-charge to members of the judiciary. The registration deadline is August 29, 2022, and requires identification of the participant as a member of the judiciary. | | | | Select News from Around the World
You are invited to share suggestions for news from your jurisdictions for inclusion in the WIPO Docket, by contacting us by contacting the WIPO Judicial Institute. Latest Decision on DABUS: An inventor must be a natural person in Australia On February 9, the Full Federal Court of Australia handed down a unanimous decision in Commission of Patents v Thaler [2022] FCAFC 62, finding that, for the purpose of the Patents Act 1990 (Cth), an inventor named on a patent application must be a natural person. In doing so, the full bench overturned a decision at first instance by a single judge of the Federal Court, which had held that an artificial intelligence (AI) system could be named as the inventor of an Australian patent, though it could not be the applicant for (and owner of) the patent. The decision may be appealed to the High Court of Australia. Supreme Court of the Philippines: Launch of a Bench Book for Commercial Courts The Sub-Committee on Commercial Courts of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, together with the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training, has released a Bench Book to assist judges of the Commercial Courts, covering a range of areas including IP. Judge Maria Rowena Modesto-San Pedro, Associate Justice of the Court of Tax Appeals of Quezon City and previous member of the WIPO Advisory Board of Judges, chaired the project and is also one of the authors of the forthcoming WIPO Intellectual Property Benchbook: Philippines and Viet Nam, which will be released in 2022. Preparatory work on the Unified Patent Court (UPC) continues Since the official start of the UPC Provisional Application Phase on 19 January 2022 with Austria’s ratification of the Protocol on the Provisional Application of the UPC Agreement, the final phase of preparatory work to establish the Unified Patent Court has been underway. Meetings of the Administrative, Budget and Advisory Committees have taken place, and the judges of the Court are expected to be appointed soon. It is expected that the Court will become operational in late 2022 or early 2023. The Court’s website provides news updates. | | | | About the WIPO Judicial Institute
The WIPO Judicial Institute, established in 2019, aims to support the efficient and effective judicial administration of IP, aligned with the national legal traditions and economic and social circumstances of WIPO’s Member States.
The Institute is a strategic unit of WIPO’s IP and Innovation Ecosystems Sector, which supports Member States in developing their IP and innovation ecosystems to drive economic growth.
The Sector’s work also includes: support for researchers, innovators, and enterprises, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); IP commercialization; IP as an asset class; advisory expertise on national IP strategies; economic analysis on the role of IP in promoting innovation and creativity; and alternative dispute resolution (ADR), including the services provided by the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center. | | | |
