The South African Department of Science and Technology is sponsoring a conference on Accelerating IP and Innovation in South Africa on September 18-20, 2011 in Cape Town, South Africa. The event is being organized by co-chairs Sherry Knowles of Knowles Intellectual Property Strategies (and former Chief Patent Counsel at GlaxoSmithKline); Jonathan Youngleson, Chief Director of the National IP Management Organization; and McLean Sibanda, Chief Executive Officer of The Innovation Hub (who was instrumental in drafting and facilitating the new IPR legislation providing for private ownership of federally funded research).
The conference has an exceptional agenda of world class speakers from Africa, China, India, Argentina, the United States, and the United Kingdom, who will discuss pressing issues concerning how to best position developing countries, and in particular South Africa, to build their economies through innovation. The conference is one of the first international patent conferences in Africa to bring together global leaders to discuss innovation. 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. 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.
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
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. The Honorable Ms. Pandor, who reports directly to South African President Jacob Zuma, and 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, will be the keynote speaker at the Gala Dinner.
The Agenda includes the following panels and sessions over two days:
Panel 1: The Role of the Judiciary and the Court System in Shaping IP Policy
Panel 2: Private Ownership and Commercialization of Publically Funded Research: Implementation Goals and Challenges in Developing Countries
Panel 3: Accelerating Commercialization and Attracting Foreign Direct Investment
Panel 4: Education and Capacity Development for Intellectual Property and Innovation in Developing Countries
Personal Reflections on Recent Decisions and Challenges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit - Chief Judge Randall Rader of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Panel 5: Creating a Model Patent Office for Developing Countries
Panel 6: Entrepreneurial Approaches to Creating IP and Innovation in Developing Countries
Panel 7: Implications of Governmental Policies on the Rate of Innovation and Investment
Panel 8: Regulatory Aspects of Product Development: Data Exclusivity and Acceleration of Approvals in Developing Countries
Those wishing to register for the conference can do so here.
Patent Docs, which is a media sponsor for the conference, intends to provide remote coverage of a few selected sessions.
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