The 28 treaties WIPO administers, and the three groups they fall in

Background

WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, administers 28 treaties, counting the WIPO Convention itself. They fall in three groups. The first sets agreed basic standards of intellectual property protection in each country, and holds the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention, the Rome Convention and the Patent Law Treaty. The second group, the global protection system treaties, lets one international registration or filing take effect in the signatory States an applicant chooses. It holds the Patent Cooperation Treaty, the Hague Agreement, the Lisbon Agreement, the Budapest Treaty and the Madrid Protocol. The third group, the classification treaties, orders information on inventions, trademarks and industrial designs: the Nice Agreement, the Locarno Agreement, the Strasbourg Agreement and the Vienna Agreement. WIPO also keeps a table of which country is party to which of these treaties. Its agreements with the United Nations and with the World Trade Organization, and TRIPS, are listed apart from the 28.