The Coordinator of Committee of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) nominated Mr. Francis Gurry, native of Australia, as General Director.The Nomination shall be approved by General Assembly WIPO on the next session that will take place on September 22-30, 2008.

Francis Gurry will be the fourth general director of WIPO after Georg Bodenhausen (Netherlands, 1970-1973), Arpad Bogsch (United States of America, 1973-1997) and Kamil Idris (Sudan, 1997-2008). The elected general director will start to duties from the October 1, 2008.

The procedure of election of the new general director of WIPO lasted three days; Francis Gurry competed with others 15 candidates on the post. After the second tour of the voting there took place withdrawal of seven candidates. In the last stage there remained two candidates: Francis Gurry and José Graça Aranha, of Brazilian origin, accumulating in the final stage respectively 42 and 41 votes.

F. Gurry started his activity in WIPO from 1985 as advisor of the Cooperation Bureau on Development and External Links with Asia and Pacific Region. He employed different posts, inclusively: head Industrial Property Direction (1988-1990), advisor of general director (1990-1993), director of the Center of Arbitration and Mediation WIPO (1993-1997), legal advisor (1997-1999), deputy director general (1999-2003) and vice-director general (2003 up to present). Before his activity in WIPO F. Gurry teach to jurisprudence, detaining more university posts. Director General is also licensed as master of law of the Melbourne University, as well as doctor of law of the Cambridge University (Great Britain).

The Francis Gurry CV is on the site:
http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/govbody/en/wo_cc_58/wo_cc_58_13_au.pdf