On September 22, 2008, Francis Gurry was unanimously appointed by the 184 member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as the organization’s newest Director General. According to the WIPO press release (link below), this appointment promoted Gurry from his then-current position of Deputy Director General, his then-highest position in his 23 year tenure with WIPO. Upon receiving his new appointment, Gurry delivered a substantive acceptance speech (transcript provided below), commenting on the growth in demand for global patent services and the use of databases to share intellectual property information. Specifically, Gurry noted that “Patent Offices are choking on demand and struggling to perform in a manner that is timely enough to be responsive to the needs of the economy,” recognizing that “There are an estimated 3.5 million unexamined patent applications in the world today.” He then commented that the problem is so critical and that a solution should be “a multilateral one, rather than one established by a group or groups of the most adversely affected States,” noting further that “The PCT provides a better basis for constructing the future solution than any other one under consideration or in the range of current imagination.” Gurry’s entire acceptance speech is provided in the second link below for your convenience.

WIPO Announcement: LINK
Acceptance Speech Transcript: LINK