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IP Viet Nam attended HIPOC live from Hanoi, Viet Nam
This is the fifth session of the e-HIPOC organized by the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific (ASPAC) of WIPO for Heads of IP Offices of ASEAN, SAARC, Mongolia and Iran with an aim to creating a forum for participants to share experiences on governing, managing IP Offices. Additionally, the meeting is also a chance for WIPO to introduce its initiatives for enhancing capability of IP Offices.
There were Mr. Andrew Michael Ong, Director of ASPAC, together with international experts from WIPO and more than 50 participants from IP Offices in the area, attending live the meeting via online platform. Mr. Tran Le Hong - Deputy Director General of IP Viet Nam and representatives from relevant units of IP Viet Nam, attended the meeting live from Ha Noi.
WIPO and other countries attended HIPOC live via online platform
The meeting session was focused on discussion on the Project on Diagnostic of Resources and Management of IP Offices (Project on IP Offices diagnostic).
According to ASPAC, currently, IP Offices in the Asian Pacific area have faced many challenges during the course of development, particularly: timeliness, quality and effectiveness in receiving and handling IP applications, increase of backlogs, requirement and commitment as a result of joining international treaties/agreements, problems of IT, governance, finance, etc. These challenges require IP Offices to accelerate their modernization process. In the context, WIPO has put forward an initiative named Project on IP Offices diagnostic. The objective of the Project is to support IP Offices in defining problems of resources and management of IP Offices to be improved then to make recommendations to resolve these problems.
The Project was deployed with support of international experts. Particularly, WIPO will sign contracts with 01 or 02 international experts to conduct following duties: (i) reviewing overall functions and tasks, as well as legal and institutional framework of IP Offices; (ii) defining necessary resources to ensure the proper implementation of these functions and tasks; (iii) carrying out diagnostic of existing resources of IP Offices; (iv) making recommendations to overcome shortages of existing resources and necessary ones to ensure the proper implementation of these functions and tasks; (v) discussing with IP Offices on feasibility and suitable duration for the project (3-5 years) to implement these recommendations. The outcomes of the Project will be a report, including detailed recommendations for IP Offices for consideration and approval.
The Project has been conducted by ASPAC since 2016. Until now, in the region, Thailand and Laos have joined the Project. ASPAC is currently formulating a draft guidelines based on practical experiences and developing a standard methodology for the implementation of the project.
Additionally, at the meeting, WIPO representatives shared with participants on opportunities for patent examinations of IP Offices to attend WIPO online training courses. Recently, under the impacts by the Covid-19 pandemic, WIPO has mostly implemented training activities via the virtual mode, which could probably be the major training mode of WIPO in the coming times./.