Talk:Francis Gurry

Proposed revision
edit semi-protected I believe that the Wikipedia page about the current Director General Francis Gurry could benefit from a clean-up as well as some additional information, as proposed for review below. Although the proposed revision was done with great attention to neutral point of view and verifiability, as an employee of WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, I have a potential Conflict of interest and am therefore not making any direct edits to the article, but just proposing implementation of the revision below (or, parts of it). For more information, please refer to my user page User:Fabiow 2011. Thank you.

Note: If the revision (or parts of it) is accepted, I can provide the whole proposed revision in Wiki markup, including Infobox, all (intra-Wikipedia) links, sections, footnotes, external references, etc.

--Start of proposed revision:

Francis Gurry (born 17 May 1951) is an Australian national and the fourth and current Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). He is also Secretary-General of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). Gurry previously served as a Deputy Director General of WIPO from 2003 to 2008.

Background

Gurry graduated in 1974 from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Laws and was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia in 1975. He worked in Melbourne as an articled clerk and solicitor at Arthur Robinson & Co. (now Allens Arthur Robinson) and earned a Master of Laws degree from the University of Melbourne in 1976. From 1976 to 1979, Gurry was a research student at the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, from which he was awarded a PhD in 1980 for his thesis dealing with breach of confidence.

Before joining WIPO, Gurry was a senior lecturer in law at the University of Melbourne and, for one year, a solicitor at Freehills, Melbourne. He was also a visiting professor of law at the University of Dijon, France.

WIPO Director General

Francis Gurry joined the World Intellectual Property Organization in 1985 as a consultant and senior program officer in the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific. Between 1988 and 1999, he held positions in different sectors of WIPO, including in the Industrial Property Law Section, the Office of the Director General, and the Legal Counsel Office. As Assistant Director General (from 1999-2003) and Deputy Director General (from 2003-2008), he was in charge of a variety of areas including the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), patent law and policy, the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (which he helped establish ), traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions and genetic resources, and life sciences.

Francis Gurry was nominated as a candidate for the position of Director General of WIPO in February 2008 and won the election on 13 May 2008. On 22 September 2008, he was appointed Director General by the WIPO General Assembly. His six-year term started on October 1, 2008 and will run through to the end of September 2014.

In his acceptance speech, he outlined his priorities for the future, including the challenge of finding an effective response to the growing global demand for intellectual property rights (particularly patents), the future of copyright in the digital age, the promotion of respect for intellectual property, the reduction of the knowledge gap between developed and developing countries, and the protection of traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions.

When he took office, he launched a strategic realignment program, which he described as intended to equip WIPO to address challenges in the rapidly changing external environment. The program is expected to be completed by the end of 2012. His restructuring initiatives included the creation of a Global Challenges Division, to contribute to major policy debates involving intellectual property and issues such as climate change, food security and health; and the appointment of a Chief Economist , to lead research on the economic impact of the intellectual property system.

Published Works

Books


 * International Intellectual Property in an Integrated World Economy, Aspen Publishers, New York, 2007 (with Frederick Abbot and Thomas Cottier), ISBN 978-0735539587
 * International Intellectual Property System: Commentary and Materials, Kluwer Law International, The Hague, 1999 (with Frederick Abbot and Thomas Cottier), ISBN 90-411-9322-7
 * Breach of Confidence, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1984, ISBN 0-19-825378-8 (re-printed 1990)
 * Confidential Information, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981

Selected Articles


 * “The Cambrian Explosion”, International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law, vol. 38, no. 3 (2007), pp. 255-258
 * “Globalization, Intellectual Property and Development”, Proceedings of the American Society of International Law, 2005
 * “The Growing Complexity of International Policy in Intellectual Property”, Science and Engineering Ethics, vol. 11, no. 1 (2005), pp. 13-20
 * “The Dispute Resolution Services of the World Intellectual Property Organization”, Journal of International Economic Law, vol. 2, no. 2 (1999), pp. 385 – 398
 * “The Evolution of Technology and Markets and the Management of Intellectual Property Rights”, in Frederick Abbott and David Gerber (eds.) Public Policy and Global Technology Integration, (Kluwer Law International, London, 1997), ISBN 90-411-0655-3
 * “Arbitrage et propriété intellectuelle”, in Institut de recherche en propriété intellectuelle Arbitrage et propriété intellectuelle (Libraires Techniques, Paris, 1994), ISBN 2-7111-2383-9

External Links


 * Francis Gurry at WIPO
 * Francis Gurry at the Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne
 * Francis Gurry at the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center (MIPLC)
 * An Interview with WIPO Director General Francis Gurry (WIPO Magazine 5/2010)
 * An Exclusive Interview with Francis Gurry, WIPO Director General (IPWatchdog, May 4, 2010)

--

Fabiow 2011 (talk) 17:33, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Only partly done. I'd like to include more from that background section, but it was poorly sourced.  The WIPO Director General part went into too much minutia.  The day he was nominated and the day he won the election are almost immaterial next to the day his term started.  I don't think we need his acceptance speech.  That's probably too many External Links (and they're not in the normal format for such links anyway).  Banaticus (talk) 12:35, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Posted in Wiki Markup and added a few more sources. --Fabiow 2011 (talk) 18:17, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ Mostly because the article isn't semi protected and you could have done it yourself. -Atmoz (talk) 17:27, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You could have done it yourself, but thank you for not doing by yourself, since you have a conflict of interest. Wiser. Thanks. --Edcolins (talk) 20:24, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Interesting statement
WIPO boss: the Web would have been better if it was patented and its users had to pay license fees Guaka (talk) 13:07, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Farm-Fresh eye.png You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:World Wide Web. Trevj (talk) 13:40, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Recent turmoil at WIPO?
Seems to be nothing about recent disputes at WIPO involving Gurry (see etc.)... AnonMoos (talk) 10:09, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I added some information, with 3 sources, trying to be carefully in line with WP:BLP. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 16:58, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks! --Edcolins (talk) 20:03, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

June 2020's edit warring
See my message to Torm65 on his or her talk page. --Edcolins (talk) 14:34, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I removed this content as the sources are not appropriate for Wikipedia. Breaking them down:
 * The Geneva Press Club reference is a press conference of former WIPO employees and lawyers. As a primary source, it's not appropriate for BLP claims.
 * The Government Accountability Project is a non-profit advocacy organization. Of course, we do consider a couple widely-referenced organizations to be reliable sources, but only after a consensus has developed. I don't see that GAP/whistleblower.org has ever been discussed at RSN. So this doesn't qualify as a source or an external link per WP:ELBLP.
 * Inner City Press is a self-published news outlet. It's probably unreliable, but it doesn't matter because SPS sources can't be used on BLP articles. Also the source doesn't even mention Francis Gurry.
 * The Register is a tech and opinion site. SPS notes that "The Register is considered generally reliable for technology-related articles", which this isn't. As such, this isn't appropriate as a source or EL per ELBLP.
 * Beyond these issues, this almost certainly shouldn't be added to the lead section without some coverage in the article body. Maybe it should only be in the article body. I don't know, we'd have to discuss that and arrive at a consensus. But no matter what, we'd need coverage in reliable, third-party published sources first. Woodroar (talk) 15:25, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for tackling this. --Edcolins (talk) 20:10, 20 July 2020 (UTC)