The growing technical cooperation between Vietnam and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has helped the country establish regulations and technical facilities for the intellectual property system.

WIPO also helped train Vietnamese officials related to intellectual asset management and build development centres, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Tran Van Tung, who attended the 54th series of meetings of the Assemblies of the Member States of the WIPO from September 22-30, told Vietnam News Agency correspondents in Geneva.

At the sessions, Ambassador Nguyen Trung Thanh, Vietnam’s permanent representative to the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and other international organisations, was elected as the new Chair of the WIPO Coordination Committee.

Thanh chaired the committee’s 70th meeting on September 26, during which he appointed Deputy Directors General and Assistant Directors General of the committee and considered the US’s proposal for a Supplementary Agenda Item entitled “the WIPO Coordination Committee to Provide Advice to the Lisbon Union Assembly regarding the Convening of a Diplomatic Conference for the Adoption of a Revised Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications in 2015”.

WIPO is the global forum for the promotion of intellectual property (IP) policy, services, information and cooperation. As a specialised agency of the United Nations, WIPO assists its 187 member states in developing a balanced international IP legal framework that meets society’s evolving needs.

It provides assistance in obtaining IP rights in multiple countries, resolves disputes, delivers capacity-building programmes to help developing countries benefit from IP, and provides free access to unique knowledge banks on IP information.