Source: KIPO
Date: 2011. 1. 21

The Korean Intellectual Property Office is elated to organize an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) education project for developing countries in the Asia-Pacific in cooperation with APEC.

Last year, APEC provided KIPO with funds of $147,000 for training Intellectual Property Rights Information Facilitators using e-learning contents. KIPO intends to blend both online and offline education programs on IPR information for about 500 people (including government officials) from developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region, such as Vietnam and Thailand, until October, 2011.

This project will be one of the first IPR educational projects for developing countries and has been promoted by the Republic of Korea as part of the Korea Initiatives adopted at the G20 Seoul summit in August, 2010.

The ‘Korea Initiatives', which was suggested by the Korean government and adopted at the G20 Seoul summit, is an agenda to support developing countries with the long term goal of attaining global economic development by bridging the gap between the advanced and the underdeveloped nations.

Intellectual property, being one of the representative areas necessary to narrow the gap between the developed and the developing countries, is a crucial part of economic development considering that the share of patent applications from G20 countries accounts for about 94% in the world.

Therefore, nurturing talented professionals from developing countries in the area of intellectual property is regarded as one of the most effective solutions, and via this project, KIPO plans to deliver the best practice of Korea, which has become the world’s IP powerhouse despite being a late starter.

As for the operational aspect of the project, KIPO will manage the online training course with IP Xpedite which is the IP e-learning content developed by KIPO in cooperation with APEC for this purpose, and operate the offline training course with seminars and lectures by experts on IP information.

The online training is to be implemented from May to June, 2011, and the offline training will be conducted in October in Korea. All courses will be provided for free, and the plan is to cover the airfare and additional expenses of the participants for the offline training.

Jeh, Dae-shik, Director General of the Information Policy Bureau at KIPO was quoted saying, “This educational project is highly meaningful when it comes to laying the foundation of human resource to reinforce the capacity of the developing nations in Asia-Pacific regions on IP. Furthermore, KIPO plans to expand the education to support the developing nations with Official Development Assistance (ODA) funds.”

* The Official name of Training Course:
“Advanced APEC Project for Training Intellectual Property Rights Information Facilitators using e-Learning Contents, IP Xpedite”