| Description: |
BACKGROUND
WIPO organized a Workshop on Human Resource Development of Patent/Trademark Agents for ARIPO Member States and Observer States on October 27 and 28, 2014, in cooperation with the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), and the Japan Patent Office (JPO).
The objective of the workshop was to assist ARIPO to have exchanges between practicing patent agents in order to find the best ways and means to improve the quality of the current business procedures before ARIPO, and to discuss initiatives that could be implemented to improve the quality of their services to meet the needs of IP system users.
In the workshop, the participants expressed needs for training on patent drafting, which will help them go the extra mile for their clients to protect IP and open up the industry in their countries (see mission report attached). Similar requests from participants were expressed in other workshops and seminars organized in Africa.
To respond to these requests, the first patent drafting course for ARIPO patent agents was organized in September 2015, which proved to be successful (see mission report attached). However, there are still many patent agents in urgent need of patent drafting training in the region of the ARIPO Member States and Observer States. Compared to other regions, patent agents equipped with patent drafting skills are still scarce.
The objective of this course is to improve the capacity of patent agents in ARIPO Member States and Observer States to draft patent applications that adequately protect the interests of local inventors.
The course consists of a face-to-face session in Harare and a follow-up session via e-mail communication. The face-to-face session will give the participants intense training by lectures and drafting exercises. Since the time available during the face-to-face session is too limited to conduct complex exercises, during the follow-up session, participants will be given more exercis |