Conference organizers have confirmed that the Honorable Ms. Naledi Pandor, Minister of the Department of Science and Technology of South Africa, will be the keynote speaker at the "Accelerating IP and Innovation in South Africa," to be held September 18-20, 2011 at the Cape Sun Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa. Ms. Pandor, who reports directly to South African President Jacob Zuma, is also a Member of Parliament and the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress (ANC), as well as the Deputy Chairperson of the Joint Education Trust Board and the National Director of the Black Management Forum.
The conference is an opportunity for international patent and innovation specialists to share best practices with their peers in South Africa and other African countries, in a forum designed to create networking and future business opportunities with the goal of expanding South Africa's growing domestic capability. The conference also provides an opportunity to celebrate the substantial accomplishment by South Africa, which recently became the first developing country in the world to pass transformational legislation allowing publicly funded universities and scientific research councils to own the IP they generate and to commercialize it for the benefit of the country and the world. The newly promulgated "Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act" (51 of 2008) also establishes a new office to administer the legislation, the National IP Management Office (NIPMO). The U.S. Bayh Dole Act fundamentally changed the landscape of the biotechnology industry in this country, and now South Africa has designed its own unique path to create and grow innovator companies, becoming an inspiring model for other developing countries.
The lead sponsor of the event is the South African Department of Science and Technology. The Co-Organizing Chairs of the event are Sherry Knowles of Knowles Intellectual Property Strategies (and former Chief Patent Counsel for GlaxoSmithKline) and McLean Sibanda, the Chief Executive Officer of The Innovation Hub, a Pretoria-based company that was instrumental in drafting and facilitating the new IPR legislation.
Scheduled conference speakers currently include:
• Ms. Naledi Pandor, Minister of the Department of Science and Technology of South Africa
• Chief Judge Randall Rader of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Judge Louis Harms, Deputy President, Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa; Chair, Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property
• Mahama Ouedraogo, Executive Secretary, African Union Science, Technology and Research Commission, Lagos, Nigeria
• Judge Brian Southwood, Gauteng High Court, Pretoria South Africa
• Teresa Rea, Deputy Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
• Phil Mjwara, Director General of Department of Science and Technology of South Africa
• Todd Dickinson, Executive Director of the AIPLA
• The impending Chief Director, National IP Management Office of South Africa
• James Pooley, Deputy Director General for Innovation and Technology, World Intellectual Property Organization
• Ms. Konji Sebati, Global Challenges Division, World Intellectual Property Organization
• Gordon I. Myers, Chief Counsel, International Finance Corporation, World Bank
• John Whealan, Associate Dean for IP, George Washington Law School
• Roy F. Waldron, Chief IP Counsel, Pfizer Corporation
• Dr. Frank Grassler, VP, Intellectual Property
• Clifford Samuel, VP of Gilead International Access Operations, Gilead Sciences, Inc.
• Representative of the Director General, African Regional IP Office (ARIPO)
• Homi R Khusrokhan, Senior Advisor, Private Equity, Tata Capital Ltd., India
• Jeffrey Q. Ke, WinTwin Capital, Shanghai, China and Los Angeles, California
• Professor Tana Pistorious, University of South Africa, Professor of Mercantile Law
• Guobin Cui, Associate Professor, Tsinghua University, School of Law, Beijing, China
• Professor Dr. Dres. h.c. Joseph Straus, Director Emeritus, Marshall B. Coyne Visiting Professor of International and Comparative Law, George Washington University Law School, Washington D.C., Visiting Fellow Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law (Munich, Germany)
• Dr. Anthony E. Lockett, Medical Director and Regulatory Consultant, Information Change Ltd.
• McLean Sibanda, CEO of The Innovation Hub, Pretoria, ZA
• Sherry Knowles, Knowles Intellectual Property Strategies, Atlanta, GA
The panel on entrepreneurial approaches to IP creation will include Professor Dennis C. Liotta, the Samuel Chandler Dobbs Professor of Chemistry at Emory University, co-inventor of HIV drug Emtricitabine, which is a key component of Gilead's HIV drugs Truvada and Atripla, and co-founder of iThemba Pharmaceuticals, a drug discovery company in South Africa focused on developing drugs for neglected tropical diseases; and Dr. Frank Litvack, a prominent interventional cardiologist, former Co-Director of the Interventional Cardiology Center at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Professor of Cardiology at UCLA School of Medicine, and successful serial entrepreneur of medical device and pharmaceutical companies.
A Welcome Reception will be held Sunday evening, September 18. The conference dinner Tuesday, September 20 will serve as the formal introduction of South Africa's new legislation. It will also give participants and attendees the opportunity to commend the country for this impressive step to expand a domestic innovator industry which is capable of contributing to African and global advancement.
The Agenda currently includes the following panels over two days:
Panel 1: The Role of the Judiciary and the Court System in shaping IP Policy
Panel 2: Private Ownership of Federally Funded Research: Strategy, Implementation, Goals and Challenges in Developing Countries
Panel 3: IP Education and Capacity Development for Intellectual Property and Innovation in Developing Countries
Panel 4: Creating a Model Patent Office for Developing Countries
Panel 5: Entrepreneurial Approaches to Creating IP and Innovation; Adapting approaches for Developing Countries
Panel 6: Accelerating Commercialization and Attracting Foreign Direct Investment
Panel 7: Regulatory Aspects of Product Development and Commercialization- Data Exclusivity and Acceleration of Drug and Device Approvals in Developing Countries
Those wishing to register for the conference can do so here. Early bird Registration ends June 30.
Patent Docs is a media sponsor for the "Accelerating IP and Innovation in South Africa" conference.
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