WIPO Director General Opens IP Capacity Building Workshop
March 1, 2021
Intellectual property (IP) is an essential element of both innovation and collaboration in health technologies, said WIPO Director General Daren Tang in his opening address of the WIPO virtual IP capacity building workshop.
From March 1 to 4, 2021, WIPO Re:Search is leading a virtual capacity building workshop aimed at empowering medical researchers and university/research institution staff from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to use the benefits of the international IP system.
In his opening remarks at the workshop, WIPO Director General Daren Tang expressed his gratitude to the participants and organizers of the workshop, including Ms. Jennifer Dent and team at BIO Ventures for Global Health, outside instructors, the WIPO Academy and WIPO subject-matter experts, as well as several WIPO Re:Search fellows present in the audience.
The global pandemic sometimes makes us forget than there are other diseases which continue to deserve our close attention, such as neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), malaria and Tuberculosis. Coming from Southeast Asia, I am all too familiar with the detrimental impact that my region suffers from NTDs. <...> Last year, I believe more people in Singapore died from dengue fever than from COVID-19,
WIPO Director General Daren Tang.
He highlighted that IP is a tool and an enabler to address global challenges, and used as an example the messenger RNA technology, which has been developed for other diseases, such as cancer, but recently was used to create the first mRNA vaccines for COVID-19. In addition, Mr. Tang mentioned, IP allows for collaboration and partnerships, as transfer of knowledge and technology happens on the basis of IP.
Mr. Tang also underlined the key goals of the workshop, including providing critical IP management training relevant to scientists and research institutes, stimulating sharing of ideas and exploration of new collaboration opportunities among the WIPO Re:Search network, and continuing to grow the WIPO Re:Search community.
"Everything we are doing here is a making a real difference in the lives of people," said Mr. Tang in conclusion.
About the workshop
In this four-day workshop, WIPO internal experts as well as invited experts from Association of University Technology Managers, Inc. (AUTM), Merck and US National Institutes of Health (NIH), will address 11 topics relevant to medical research scientists and staff. The discussions will be held under the following themes:
- Introduction to Intellectual Property (IP), including the International System
- Patent basics, including introduction to PCT, PATENTSCOPE, prior art searches and publicly available resources, traditional knowledge and genetic resources
- Technology and Innovation Support Center (TISC) and Inventor Assistance Program (IAP)
- Setting up of university IP management offices, including systems, procedures and templates (e.g., MTAs)
- Invention disclosure assessment, IP strategy development, introduction to WIPO PROOF
- Alternative dispute resolution in transfer of technology and licensing through arbitration and mediation
- Open Innovations: Opportunities and challenges
- IP transfer/licensing agreements: Identifying partners, developing relationships, negotiating agreements in alignment with WIPO Re:Search Guiding Principles
- Private industry’s perspective on IP transfer/licensing agreements
- WIPO Match and WIPO Sequence
- Public-private partnerships: Innovation and technology transfer