Speech of Mr Daren Tang, Director-General of WIPO

Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin, 
Chair of the ITU Council, Mr. Cesar Martinez, 
Councilors, 
Distinguished Delegates,
 
Thank you for inviting me to address you today. It is a great pleasure to be here, and to bring the work of WIPO and ITU closer together.

Dear colleagues
 
While the digital transformation of our world started decades ago with waves of innovation brought about by PCs, the internet and then social media, what has happened is that the pandemic has accelerated this transformation.
 
Allow me to share some data.
 
Nearly 80,000 patents in ICT fields were filed through WIPO’s international patent filing system in 2022, out of a total of 285,000. This is almost double the total of 10 years ago and represents the eighth year in a row that ICT related patents have increased worldwide.  And this is not just in patents. Digital-related filings also make up the largest share of trade mark and design applications around the world.
 
The volume of change is significant.
 
However, what is also interesting is that the transformation is not just happening in Europe and North America, but increasingly in many other parts of the world.
 
10 years ago, 4 in 10 IP filings came from Europe and North America. Today, 8 in 10 IP filings originate in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
 
India has emerged as the world’s third largest ecosystem for start-ups, with over 100 unicorns, many of whom operate in this area. 
 
And amidst the tightening of money supply, Africa and Latin America led the way in terms of VC deal growth last year, with Africa the only region not to see an overall decline in the value of VC investments in 2022.
 
Put simply, the geography of digital growth is also changing.
 
In last year’s Global Innovation Index, WIPO analysed these trends and identified two emerging innovation waves gathering momentum around the world: a digital innovation wave built on AI, supercomputing, and automation; and a deep science wave, built around biotechnologies and nanotechnologies. Many have observed that in fact these two waves are merging, with digital and deep tech converging.
 
While these trends are exciting, as a UN agency, WIPO wants to work to ensure that the digital and deep tech transformation of the world must reach and work for all. This was a theme of my address to the WIPO Assemblies earlier in the month, as well as SG Bogdan-Martin’s State of the Union Address last week.
 
We are both clear that instead of a digital divide, we must use the power of innovation, creativity and IP to bring about a digital dividend for everyone in the world – where new technologies and solutions create jobs, drive growth and help to build a better, fairer and more equal world.
 
Let me offer three reflections at the global level on how we can achieve this. 
 
First, we need to ensure that IP works not for the few, but for the many.
 
As IP moves towards the center of our economies and societies, it can no longer remain a technical area of interest to only IP specialists and experts, but must become a powerful catalyst for jobs, investments, business growth and economic development in all parts of the world, and especially for developing countries and least developed countries.
 
This is why WIPO is building a more inclusive IP ecosystem – one that is closer and more connected to groups such as women, youth and small and medium enterprises that need to be better served by the IP community.
 
To offer just a flavor of this work, we have launched 90 impact driven projects over the past two years, including intensive training and mentoring programs for women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, Namibia and Pakistan.
 
We have transformed the work of the WIPO Academy – the largest provider of IP skills and education in the world – to move beyond traditional IP courses for IP professionals, to supporting entrepreneurs, researchers, teachers, and others build practical IP skills.

This has seen us introduce courses such as IP for App and Videogame Developers, as well as Patent X, a new course of global public health run with Harvard. It is important to note that 70 percent of WIPO Academy participants are under 35, and that two-thirds are from Asia, Africa and Latin America.
 
And we have introduced new tools and services like the WIPO IP Diagnostics Tool for SMEs to help more firms maximize their potential through IP. The tool has been accessed over 22,000 times in the first 18 months since launch, generating 3,000 customized reports for SME owners around the world.
 
Bringing IP closer to more people and making it part of their daily lives, will help more ideas from anywhere get to market, and this will continue to be WIPO’s focus as we transform from a technical-driven agency to an impact-driven agency.
 
Second, we want WIPO to continue being a global forum for the discussion of issues sitting at the intersection of the digital, innovation and IP worlds.
 
One example is our regular conversations on IP and Frontier Technologies, with our Eight, to be held on September 20-21^st, centered around Generative AI and IP.
 
Interest in these conversations is growing. More than 4000 attended our last conversation in March on IP and the Metaverse, two thirds from developing and the least developed countries.
 
Now, we are seeking to translate these insights into practical actions. For instance, we have begun an IP management Clinic for SMEs active in AI and will launch a policy guide for IP Offices on AI later this year.
 
There are clear parallels here with the ITU’s AI for Good Initiative and it is imperative that UN agencies continue to provide platforms for experts, policymakers and civil society not just to talk about emerging technologies, but, where appropriate, to act as well.
 
This brings me to my third point.
 
Innovation, digitalization, technology, AI and IP are not vertical issues but horizontal. As such, it is key that we working across UN agencies to help Member States address them.
 
One of the most powerful lessons of the pandemic was that the global response was strongest when parties pulled together, including when international organizations pooled their expertise.
 
One of the early steps WIPO was to strengthen our trilateral cooperation with the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization. We knew that by working across all three agencies we could enhance the assistance available to Member States, and add to the support offered by our own COVID-19 response package.
 
These lessons must inspire our future work. Partnerships are essential to addressing multifaceted global challenges and delivering positive impacts to people in all regions of the world.
 
Therefore, we are very pleased to be working with the ITU and WHO on the new Global AI for Health Initiative. This timely and exciting project will help to promote the realization of all health-related SDGs. Given the transformative impact of AI in healthcare, we see an important role for intellectual property in supporting new innovations become reality.
 
I also commend ITU for convening the UN family in support of the SDGs. The SDG Digital Day that will be take place later this year at the UNSDG Summit in New York will serve as an important reminder about the power of digital. We are all aware that progress on the SDGs has either stalled or gone into reverse.
 
It is therefore critical that we bring together all of our efforts to bring the SDGs back on track and harness the power of innovation and creativity from around the world so that together we can use IP to help build a better, fairer and more sustainable world.
 
Ladies and Gentlemen,
 
Let me conclude by emphasizing that WIPO stands ready to be your partner on this journey.
 
Both WIPO and the ITU are on the frontlines of the digital transformation, so let’s continue to find new ways of combining our expertise to make our shared goals a reality and ensure that the digital transformation works for everyone, everywhere.
 
Thank you.