Árpád Bogsch (February 24, 1919 – September 19, 2004) was a

Hungarian-American Hungarian Americans (, ) are Americans of Hungarian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau has estimated that there are approximately 1.396 million Americans of Hungarian descent as of 2018. The total number of people with ethnic Hungarian backgroun ...

international

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

. He was born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

, and became an American citizen in 1959. From 1973 to 1997, he was Director General of

World Intellectual Property Organization The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to pr ...

(WIPO). He was also Secretary General of the

International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants or UPOV () is a treaty body (non-United Nations intergovernmental organization) with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Its objective is to provide an effective system for p ...

(UPOV). He died in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

WIPO

In 1993, Bogsch described China's intellectual property development as unprecedented in the history of intellectual property. China cited Bogsch's statement in responding to U.S. criticism and the dynamic led to growth in the China-WIPO relationship.

Tributes

There have been a number of tributes made in Bogsch's memory. The main building at WIPO headquarters in

is named the "Árpád Bogsch building" in his honor. The Hungarian Intellectual Property Office, in the country of Bogsch's birth, features a bust of Bogsch by sculptor . The International Federation of Inventors' Associations established the Árpád Bogsch Memory Medal in 2010, to be awarded to individuals who support invention and innovation in the same spirit as Bogsch.

Documentary films featuring him

Bogsch was featured in the 1988 Swiss documentary film ''A Szellem Tulajdona'' (''Property of the Intellect''), directed by Zoltán Bonta. WIPO1

Notable works

* A comprehensive annotation of the

Universal Copyright Convention Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) is an international instrument which was drawn up in 1952 under the auspices of UNESCO. The UCC was adopted in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1952, and enforced in 1955, is one of the two principal international conv ...

References

1919 births 2004 deaths Hungarian emigrants to the United States World Intellectual Property Organization people American officials of the United Nations {{US-law-bio-stub