THIS IS IN SUPPORT OF WORLD IP DAY 2017!
Every April 26, World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO) celebrate World Intellectual Property Day to learn about
the role that intellectual property rights (patents, trademarks, industrial designs, copyright)
play in encouraging innovation and creativity.
This year, WIPO will explore how innovation is
making our lives healthier, safer, and more comfortable, turning problems into
progress. WIPO will look at how the intellectual property system supports
innovation by attracting investment, rewarding creators, encouraging them to
develop their ideas, and ensuring that their new knowledge is freely available
so that tomorrow’s innovators can build on today’s new technology.
Every day, ordinary people are producing
extraordinary new things to change the world for the better.
Their innovations take myriad forms, from the
mundane to the seemingly miraculous: A billboard in Peru that harvests water
from the air, supplying the local community with clean drinking water; a
3D-printer at an American university that regenerates damaged human tissue; a
mobile money transfer and microfinancing service from Kenya, renewable energy
solutions that power fridges in rural India; a graphene battery from China that
charges a mobile phone in minutes; cutting-edge assistive technologies from the
Russian Federation to help people with disabilities perform everyday tasks.
Problems to progress
From new medicines and materials to improved crop
varieties and communications, innovation is making our lives healthier, safer,
and more comfortable.
Innovation is a human force that knows no limits.
It turns problems into progress. It pushes the boundaries of possibility,
creating unprecedented new capabilities.
World Intellectual Property Day 2017 celebrates
that creative force. WIPO will explore how some of the world’s most
extraordinary innovations have improved our lives; and how new ideas are
helping tackle shared global challenges, such as climate change, health,
poverty and the need to feed an ever-expanding population.
WIPO will look at how the intellectual property
system supports innovation by attracting investment, rewarding creators,
encouraging them to develop their ideas, and ensuring that their new knowledge
is freely available so that tomorrow’s innovators can build on today’s new
technology.
Your turn
Which innovation has most improved your life?
What more can be done to make sure new technologies reach the people who need
them? What do you think should be the priorities for future innovation?