IP Heavyweights Address Global Challenges

IP Heavyweights Address Global Challenges
Released by the APEC Trading Ideas Symposium

Sydney, Australia, January 28, 2007 -- More than 500 leading Intellectual Property (IP) policy planners and senior business people who have driven the innovation revolution of recent years are meeting in Sydney to address challenges to the global IP system.

The Trading Ideas Symposium, an initiative of the Australian Government and APEC, is being held on January 28-30 with the aim of sharing experiences of the past and charting a way forward for the future.

The United States’ Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States’ Patent and Trademark Office, Mr. Jon W. Dudas, said the symposium brings people from around the world together to share their ideas

“The Trading Ideas Symposium being held this week is perfect timing for the world,” Mr. Dudas said from Sydney.

“Every national leader is looking to innovation in their economies and that innovation needs to be protected through intellectual property rights.”

Speaking on the eve of the symposium, the Deputy Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization, Mr. Francis Gurry, said one of the most notable challenges comes from the changing geopolitical nature of demand in the IP system.

“You have China increasing 60% in international patent applications last year and Korea up around 30%, and this means that the languages in which technology is generated are radically changing,” Mr. Gurry said.

“For the last 400 years essentially the world’s technologies have been produced in European languages and now we are finding an increasing number of patents in science and technology articles coming out in Korean, Japanese and Chinese.”

The President-Elect of the European Patent Office, Ms. Alison Brimelow, said she believes that one of the major issues confronting the global IP environment as increasing demand for IP services and how this will be dealt with at a local and global level.

“As the next head of a major office I am very concerned about backlogs in the system, people waiting a long time for their patents and that creates ambiguity.

“It also raises questions of quality, and I have to say that second class quality in the patents system serves nobody.”

Mr. Dudas expressed similar sentiments noting that workload issues governments are facing in the Asia-Pacific region and throughout the world are becoming greater.

“Right now we have right an 18 million patent backlog throughout the world. One of the things we want to make certain of is that different nations and different offices are able to share their work together.”

The full program of speakers and the issues they will discuss is available at: www.tradingideas.org

ENDS

© Scoop Media