Inter-Regional Virtual event on IP and Innovation for SMEs, in the context of the 8th Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD)
March 1, 2023
In the context of the TICAD VIII, held in Tunis, Tunisia, on August 27 and 28, 2022, WIPO organized an Inter-Regional Virtual event promoting intellectual property and innovation for SMEs, in collaboration with the Japan Patent Office (JPO) on September 27 and 28, 2022.
About the meeting
About 120 registered participants attended this two-day event from all around Africa. The main participants were government officials, entrepreneurs, and stakeholders working for academic institutions in African countries.
The objectives of the event were to:
- Provide a forum for awareness raising, sharing of experience and good practices on effective use of IP for business growth by SMEs;
- Highlight the importance of Intellectual Property rights - enhancing policies and industry- academia collaboration in supporting innovation for SMEs growth and competitiveness;
- Showcase some success stories and best practices from Africa and the Arab region in promotion of innovation by women in entrepreneurship;
- Highlight the fruitful collaboration between the JPO and WIPO in facilitating the use of IP tools for development in African and Arab countries.
The event was opened by the remarks delivered by Mr. Walid Abdelnasser, Director, Division for Arab Countries, Regional and National Development Sector, WIPO and Mr. Yasuda Futoshi, Director-General, Trial and Appeal Department, Japan Patent Office.
Following the opening remarks, WIPO’s representatives presented a variety of support activities, focusing on IP commercialization, bridging the gap between academia and industry, utilization of TISC networks, efficient IP asset management, and empowering women entrepreneurs.
At the end of the first day, Mr. Yagi Keita, Deputy Director, Policy Planning and Research Division, Policy Planning and Coordination Department, Japan Patent Office, gave a presentation on the role of IP and JPO initiatives for the Commercialization of Innovation.
On the second day, Dr. Maha Bahiet Zaki, Director, Legal Affairs Department, Legal Sector, League of Arab States, and Ms. Eman Albader, Head of the Gulf Cooperation Council Intellectual Property Training Center (GCC-IPTC), Kuwait City, and Ms. Stephanie Bouloc, Founder of La Déchetèque Port Louis, Mauritius shared their experiences and success stories on increasing the role of women in innovation and entrepreneurship.
The event was closed by the remarks delivered by Mr. Fushimi Kunihiko, Funds-in-Trust Japan Industrial Property Global (FIT Japan IP Global) Manager, WIPO.
These presentations were highly appreciated by many participants and each presenter revived active comments and questions at discussion sessions.
TICAD and Funds-in-trust Japan
TICAD has played an important role for the cooperation activities between Africa and Japan.
In 2008, the year in which TICAD IV was held, JPO, in cooperation with WIPO, established a Trust-Funds arrangement for industrial property dedicated to the development of Africa and LDCs (Japan FIT/IP for Africa and LDCs). The fund had a clear objective to support African countries to facilitate the growth of local industries through better use of their intellectual property systems and the increase of investments from the rest of the world through improvement of the trade and investment environment. Since 2008, the Government of Japan had contributed 1.1 million Swiss francs a year to the fund. In 2015, Japan increased its contribution to 1.6 million Swiss francs so as to respond to growing needs from an emerging Africa. In 2019, Japan FIT/IP for Africa and LDCs was merged with Japan Funds-in-Trust for Industrial Property for Asia and Pacific into a Global Funds-in-Trust in the field of industrial property, namely the current FIT Japan IP Global.