Geneva, Mar 4 (AFP) Countries on Wednesday voted to put the head of Singapore's national patent agency in charge of global intellectual property, replacing Australian Francis Gurry after 12 years at of the helm of the World Intellectual Property Organization.

In a second round of voting, Daren Tang took 55 votes over 28 for Chinese candidate Wang Binying, who has served as WIPO's deputy chief for a decade, the UN agency said.

The result still needs to be confirmed during the agency's extraordinary general assembly, but that is traditionally a formality.

Wednesday's process had been expected to take far longer, with a separate round of voting to eliminate each of the five other candidates.

But after a first round of voting Wednesday morning, during which a delegation from each of WIPO's 83 member states walked to the front of the room to put their ballot in the voting box, all but two candidates dropped out.

That left Tang, who had the backing of the United States among other countries, facing off against Wang in the running to take the helm of the influential agency. (AFP)

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