Francis Gurry - Career

Career

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.

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 1 October 2008 and will run through to the end of September 2014.