World IP Day: WIPO celebrates youth innovators
World IP Day will be celebrated on Wednesday, April 26, and this year’s theme is IP and Youth: Innovating for a Better Future.
Ahead of the annual event, WIPR brings you some key activities marking the day.
Youth focus
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said this year’s theme was chosen because young people are “stepping up to innovation challenges, using their energy and ingenuity, their curiosity and creativity to steer a course towards a better future”.
The organisation has unveiled several initiatives to explore how these innovative, energetic and creative minds are driving positive change.
This includes a video competition on this year’s theme that received 142 entries from 63 countries. The IP community can view the 20 shortlisted videos and help select the winners, who will receive prizes that include CHF5,000 ($5,233) of digital equipment.
The online public vote will be open from April 12-22, 2022.
WIPO is also running a survey, where young practitioners have been invited to share their views on innovation, creativity and IP in a short survey and help inform WIPO’s youth engagement activities.
In addition, check out its World IP Day Youth Gallery, featuring young innovators who are shaping a better future.
US
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will hold a two-hour webinar that includes a “fireside chat” with its new director Kathi Vidal; Shira Perlmutter, register of copyrights and director of the US Copyright Office; and Daren Tang, director general of WIPO.
The group will discuss how to promote IP adoption among young innovators and include presentations by US legislators on current IP initiatives before Congress.
The US Copyright Office is holding an event of its own, called Engage Your Creativity: Copyright and IP for Young Professionals–a zoom call exploring the IP rights available to young creators.
Attendees will hear presentations from George Thuronyi, the interim head of the Public Information and Education Office; Branden Ritchie, a senior USPTO attorney; and Jaylen Johnson, attorney-advisor from the Public Information and Education Office.
The programme will end with Christopher Kenneally of the Copyright Alliance, who will interview young artists to discuss their experiences with IP, their career stories, and links to copyright relevance.
Singapore
The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore will broadcast a Youth Panel Conversation on IP, including the musician, actor, and writer, Benjamin Kheng, fintech entrepreneur Louis Liu, and Rajah & Tann IP lawyer Benjamin Cheong, among others.
Alvin Tan, Singapore’s Minister of State, Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth & Ministry of Trade and Industry, will make the opening address.
Health innovation
The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) will host a live and online event that “highlights key elements of a sustainable health innovation ecosystem that can advance promising solutions designed by young innovators”.
An eclectic panel of 19 speakers, including healthcare innovators, government representatives, and young creators, will illustrate “the ways in which young people are not merely recipients of innovation, but co-creators of the future they will inherit”.
World IP Day was established by WIPO in 2000 to “raise awareness of how patents, copyright, trademarks and designs impact on daily life” and “to celebrate creativity, and the contribution made by creators and innovators to the development of societies across the globe”.
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