Turkey eyes regional partnerships with WIPO members

By Jeyhun Aliyev

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey is ready to develop regional partnership with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) members, the patent office said on Wednesday.

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TurkPatent) represents Turkey in the 58th series of meetings of the Member States' Assemblies of WIPO between Sept. 24 and Oct. 2 in Geneva, TurkPatent said in a statement.

"Turkey is ready for developing regional partnerships and projects with WIPO member states as for the intellectual property education," the statement quoted the chairman Habib Asan as saying on the first day of the meeting.

Asan, who headed the Turkish delegation, emphasized the importance of developing comprehensive policies with transparency and objectivity in international organizations such as WIPO.

Upon the ongoing work to establish Intellectual Property Academy in Turkey, Asan said it is almost completed.

"It is very important to follow an egalitarian, objective, comprehensive and transparent approach to the WIPO election process for external offices planned to be opened in the future," Asan stressed.

He also said Turkey implemented many projects, including "Master of Laws in Intellectual Property" program -- launched in cooperation with Ankara University --, with the support of WIPO.

The TurkPatent delegation is expected to hold bilateral meetings with representatives of Singapore, Ukraine, Georgia, Austria, Iceland, France and Oman.

Meanwhile, the TurkPatent delegation will sign a joint Memorandum of Understanding on bilateral cooperation with the Singapore office and Joint Action Plan with the Ukraine’s Economic Development and Trade Ministry.

Representatives from 191 member states, intergovernmental and regional organizations along with the participants of non-governmental organizations in the field of intellectual property are expected to join the series of meetings in Geneva.

Last year, a total of 10,424 patents, 85,573 trademarks, 44,214 designs and 2,088 utility models were registered by TurkPatent.

Since 2011, Turkey has received more trademark applications yearly than any other European country -- over 100,000.

Established in 1967 with headquarters in Geneva, WIPO -- a self-funding UN agency -- is the global forum for intellectual property services, policy, information and cooperation.