Asia-Pacific marks World IP Day

Australia: The Sunshine Coast is hosting a series of workshops on World IP Day. Speakers include Paul Loeffler-White, marketing director for IP Australia, and Paul Brennan of Brennan and Solicitors and former legal counsel for Intel in Hong Kong. The events take place at the Sunshine Coast TAFE in Queensland.

China: The Intellectual Property Office is hosting a week of events celebrating World IP Day in Beijing. The theme of 2012 National IPR Publicity Week is "Cultivating the intellectual property culture, promoting the social innovation development".

Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Intellectual Property Department is hosting a World IP Day cocktail reception at 6 pm at the Innocentre in Kowloon Tong.

India: The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry is hosting a conference on national IP policy at the Federation House in Tansen Marg, New Delhi.

The Confederation of Indian Industry is hosting a panel discussion entitled “Is India doing triple balance among intellectual property rights, affordable healthcare and economic growth?” moderated by Rahul Kanwal.

The CII will also hold its 2012 National IP Awards ceremony. The event will take place at the Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi.

Japan: The Licensing Executives Society of Japan is organising a workshop on government, university and industry transactions in downtown Tokyo. Kayoko Yamamoto, a journalist covering university-industry relations, and Katsuya Hasegawa, a professor at the University of Tokyo, will speak.

South Korea: The Korean Intellectual Property office is hosting the forum “Strategies to create innovative patents” at the Korean IP Center in Seoul.

Vietnam: The National Office of Intellectual Property is organising a week of events including an IP training course for journalists; an online talk on patents on the Dat Viet E-Newspaper web page; a national TV talk show on Youth & Innovation; IP helpdesks; an IP seminar; a competition for young people and a roundtable discussion in cooperation with Vietnam National University.

The World Intellectual Property Organization started World IP Day in 2001 to celebrate innovation and creativity and highlight the importance of intellectual property. It takes place each year on April 26, the day the WIPO Convention came into effect in 1970.

This year’s theme is “Visionary innovators”.

Check managingip.com later today for reports from Europe and the Americas.