The 8th session of the Committee on WIPO Standards was held in a Hybrid format on November 30 – December 4, 2020.

WIPO Director General Mr. Daren Tang opened the session, emphasizing that WIPO Standards play a crucial role in the international collaboration of IP Offices, as well as in the entire digitalization process, that is extremely important and beneficial during emergencies. He also pointed out that Blockchain Task Force, 3D Task Force, Web-API Task Force, and XML4IP Task Force are the priority among other CWS activities. 

The Russian Federation as one of the key actors at the CWS is leading the 3D Task Force, and co-leading with IP Australia the Blockchain Task Force. Despite difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic these Task Forces proceeded active collaboration for the development of new WIPO Standards. The Task Forces switched to teleworking, commenced the discussions via the internet forum, carried out a number of videoconferences in order to develop the recommendations on 3D and Blockchain.

WIPO Member States highly appreciated the hard work within the Task Forces, led by the Russian Federation, and noted valuable inputs and contribution from Russian experts to the other Task Forces` activities. The delegations supported the proposal by the 3D Task Force leader to extend the task scope and investigate in more detail search and comparison of 3D models and 3D images, basing on the experience of the Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic University.

The CWS also noted and adopted the following new WIPO Standards: a new standard on Web-API, a new standard on multimedia marks, a new standard on trademark legal status data, and a new standard on design representations.