The Sixty-Third Series of Meetings of the Assemblies of the Member States of WIPO is being held at the WIPO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on July 14-22 of current year.

Opening the international event, WIPO Director General Daren Tang called for continued efforts to make intellectual property (IP) a powerful catalyst for job creation, investment attraction, business activation and economic development. He noted that the innovation activity in modern times has gone beyond the classic innovation giants and seven out of ten IP claims are currently filed in Africa, Asia and Latin America. He pointed to the fact that venture investments in Africa and Latin America have more than quadrupled in the last twelve months as another example of the internationalization of innovation.

The Director General pointed out that the number of applications on IP objects continues to grow, the number of international patent applications filed through WIPO, as well as the number of applications for registration of trademarks and industrial designs reached a record level in 2021.

The Prime Minister of Cape Verde, José Ulysses Correia i Silva, and the President of Colombia, Ivan Duque, who attended as special guests, also gave welcoming speeches.

Kamran Imanov, Chairman of Board of the Intellectual Property Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan, who participated in the plenary session of the General Assembly online, spoke in French. On behalf of the delegation of the Republic of Azerbaijan, he welcomed the participants of the Assemblies of the Member States of the WIPO and wished them to achieve their goals and expressed his gratitude to the WIPO Secretariat for organizing the event.

The Head of the Agency noted that in the post-conflict period in Azerbaijan, active work was carried out in the direction of mine clearance and restoration of ruins in the lands freed from occupation, and an important place was allocated to the field of intellectual property in the construction of smart villages and smart cities.

It was emphasized that the transformation of intellectual property into an important element of economic prosperity is becoming more and more important, and this will provide important assistance to the formation of national innovation ecosystems. According to the Decree of the President of Azerbaijan Mr. Ilham Aliyev, the Analysis and Coordination Center of the Fourth Industrial Revolution was established under the Ministry of Economy, and the representative of the Agency is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Center. The establishment of the Center for Commercialization and Transfer of Technologies under the Agency, as well as the establishment of branches of intellectual property departments of universities in the Agency, also serves this purpose. In order to develop a national strategy, work is being carried out on problems such as revision of intellectual property based on the unity of law, economics and sociology, interaction and mutual enrichment of patent law and copyright, and the role of intellectual property in the innovation process.

Dr. K. Imanov said that the new institutional structure of intellectual property, which is united in a single institution in Azerbaijan and created on the basis of a model that meets modern challenges, is of exceptional importance in terms of ensuring the efficiency of the Agency's activities.