1-2 December 2005: University Research and Development Initiative, Zagreb

The Regional Workshop “University Research and Development Initiative” will be held in Zagreb on 1-2 December 2005 under the EC-funded CARDS Regional IPR Programme in the Western Balkans. The main objectives of this seminar are to encourage the creation of an IP policy by the universities, to assist the universities in identifying and exploiting their IP assets, and to improve IP protection for research results and innovations generated by universities and R&D institutes.

Zeljko Topic, Director General of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), Emilija Spirovska, CARDS Team Leader from the European Patent Office (EPO) and Vladimir Yossifov, Director of the Division for Co-operation with Certain Countries in Europe and Asia, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), will open the event and welcome representatives of universities and research institutes in the Western Balkans. More than 50 participants from Croatia and the region will attend the event. International experts from Germany, Switzerland and Hungary will explain the use of IP systems, how technological information contained in patent documentation can be turned to account, and the preparation and protection of research results for use in industry.

In general, the seminar topics will cover intellectual property rights at universities, technology transfer, commercialisation of research results at universities, strategic patent portfolio management and technology classification systems.

Co-organisers of the seminar are the State Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Croatia (SIPO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The CARDS Regional IPR Programme is putting on this event as a means of promoting regional co-operation and helping all sectors to integrate intellectual property into their business approach for developing competitive positions on the international market.