GFIP 2009

As previously reported on this blog, the two-day Global Forum on Intellectual Property 2009 was held beginning of this month in Singapore.

Organised by the Intellectual Property Academy of Singapore, it covered “traditional” areas of IP (copyright and design, patents etc.) and also more recent fields, such as intellectual asset management and IP valuation. The conference program is available here.

In the panel discussion “Optimal Structures for Intellectual Assets Management in a Multi-National Group”, Dr. Gordon McConnachie (founding chairman of the IA Centre of Scotland) and Audrey Yap (managing partner at Yu Sarn Audrey & Partners), cited Alan Lung, CEO of the Asia Pacific Intellectual Capital Centre, presenting a different view of “intellectual capital” (that is, all of a company’s knowledge, both tacit and explicit, that can be used to create value).

McConnachie and Yap cited Dow Chemical, the chemicals company, as an example of how intellectual asset management can be successfully applied in practice, increasing licensing income and making use of leveraged process know-how and intellectual assets in joint ventures and sales. Dow Corporate Licensing now embodies the management of IP as a component of business strategy across the entire corporation, generating $100 million income per year.

With IP assets increasingly attracting fiscal value, companies also need to get their tax planning right. The panel discussion “Maximising Your Intellectual Assets Revenue: a Tax Perspective” included speakers Pieter de Ridder (partner at Loyens & Loeff) and Abhijit Ghosh (partner at PWC) who gave an insight of how to maximise IP revenue from a tax perspective, looking inter alia into Singapore’s fiscal landscape for R&D and IP management.

If any reader has more information about the IP finance relevant sessions of the Forum, can he or she please share it with us?

Second Global Forum on Intellectual Property 2009

Following the success of its inaugural Global Forum on Intellectual Property in August 2006, the IP Academy Singapore now organises the second Global Forum on Intellectual Property 2009 (GFIP 2009) on 8 and 9 January 2009 at the Raffles City Convention Centre in Singapore.

According to Chairman David Llewelyn, GFIP 2009 is "shaping up to be the foremost multidisciplinary IP conference in the Asia Pacific region for 2009". The theme of GFIP 2009 (which is expected to draw about 500 delegates from various IP related fields around the world) is "The Evolving Intellectual Property Ecosystem: Conflicts or Consensus?".

Finance issues feature prominently in the provisional program: on day one there is a session on IP and Intellectual Asset Management (for example featuring a panel discussion on maximising IA revenue from a tax perspective) and on day two there is a session planed on IP & Finance.

More information on the GFIP 2009 and the value of IP assets is available here and here; more information on the IP Academy Singapore – established in 2003 as part of a national initiative to develop Singapore into an IP hub - here.