Each year on April 26, we celebrate the World Intellectual Property Day. Established in 2000 by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the World IP Day is meant to raise awareness of the need to advance innovation and to celebrate various forms of creativity and the contributions made by creators and innovators to global economic development.

This year the theme for the World Intellectual Property Day was “Women and IP: Accelerating Innovation and Creativity”.[1] In line with the theme, WIPO provided access to a number of resources to support and advance women’s participation in IP. Among those resources are IP Guides for Business designated to help small and medium-sized enterprises to understand the importance of IP. These guides can be accessed on WIPO’s website at https://www.wipo.int/publications/en/series/index.jsp?id=181.

Leading up to the World Intellectual Property Day, WIPO also organized the “Training, Mentoring and Matchmaking Program on Intellectual Property” for women entrepreneurs from Indigenous People and local communities. The program aimed to “encourage women entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity related to traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions”[2].