Featured topics include IP as a channel to promote economic development and R&D, disruptive technologies such as AI, IP management and valuation, regulation of standard essential patents, national agricultural policies and methodologies of research on IP, among others.

The impact of Covid 19, treatment and access to vaccines will also be tackled.

“The law and policy of IP intersect with an ever more diverse range of public policy and development issues, and this translates into a need for ever more diverse analysis and scholarship, within and beyond the traditional scope of IP law,” said Antony Taubman, director of the IP, government procurement and competition division of the WTO. “We have had a compelling reminder of this over the past year - as we wrestle with the challenges of creating vaccines and new treatments to address the Covid-19 pandemic, and making sure that these are swiftly and equitably made available to people across the globe, the role of a balanced and well‑functioning IP system has come under close and critical review.  More generally, the need for careful attention to the interaction between the IP system and public health policy has been a critical issue for many years.”

“If anything, the challenge of the conference is to continue to be both inclusive—so that many scholars can present and receive feedback from peers—and not too large,” said Irene Calboli, professor at the Texas A&M University School of Law and visiting scholar at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. “One of the most important features is that it mixes senior and junior scholars with policymakers as well as scholars from different regions of Asia and the world.” Calboli was instrumental in the formation of the IPIRA Network.

Taubman added that new scholarship from Asia now demonstrates a greater capacity for critical analysis and development of policy lessons from the practical experience of countries in the region. “There is a stronger information basis and a foundation for mutual learning among developing countries in the region, in contrast with a past reliance on scholarship based in developed countries with longer established IP systems,” he explained.

The Third IPIRA Conference will also feature Virtual Lunch Breaks, Virtual Dinners, Virtual Gala Dinner and Virtual Receptions using certain features of Zoom.

“We have all learned a lot over the past year about how to make such digital events more ‘real’ and inclusive for the participants,” said Taubman. “We do hope that the virtual social activities will also help to bridge the gaps and to enable the kind of networking and informal dialogue to flourish despite the limitations of experiencing a conference conducted via the exchange of packages of data on line.”

The conferenceis organized by the IPIRA Network in cooperation with the WIPO Academy, WTO and academic institutions around the world.

Espie Angelica A. de Leon