IPR Book Tour and Public Awareness Program
17 Jun 2007Several Yemeni government officials, judges and businessmen attended a special book tour and public awareness campaign on Intellectual Property Rights at the Ministry of Industry and Trade on June 17. The event was sponsored by the U.S. State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Deputy Minister of Trade, Iqbal Bahader, and the U.S. Embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission Nabeel Khoury delivered opening remarks.
Afterwards, U.S. Patent and Trademark Representative, Joseph Rodriguez, distributed complementary copies of the “Intellectual Property and You” book series to the audience, which provides guidelines about the use and protection of Intellectual Property and Information on using, protecting, registering and enforcing copyrights, trademarks, designs and patents. Haytham Fahmi of Abu-Ghazaleh & Co. Consulting gave a speech on the “Achievements and Challenges in Intellectual Property Development in Yemen,” followed by presentations given by Aatef Moula of Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP) and the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s General Manager of Intellectual Property Rights Fadhl Mansour on “Resources for Creating, Managing and Protecting Intellectual Property.”
The overall theme of the book tour was to raise awareness of Intellectual Property Rights in Yemen. Speakers emphasized that protection of Intellectual Property would be crucial for attracting investment to Yemen and that without adequate intellectual property protection, investors will not want to come to Yemen. Protection of Intellectual Property will be a linchpin for Yemen’s accession to the World Trade Organization and for receiving additional assistance from the Donor Community, according to book tour participants. In certain fields, like pharmaceuticals, wherein counterfeit medicines are a growing problem, protection of Intellectual Property could be the difference between life and death.
The book tour is one of many MEPI-USPTO programs available to Yemenis in the region and many Yemenis have participated in Intellectual Property Rights training in the past. Seven Yemeni judges and government officials attended a workshop on “Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights” in Alexandria, Virginia in December 2005. In January 2006, MEPI and USPTO held another workshop in Dubai, which was attended by several judges from Yemen.
The Republic of Yemen government has recently demonstrated its commitment to Intellectual Property Rights by its entry into the Paris Convention for the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights on February 15, 2007 and by its submission of an Action Plan to implement the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS Agreement). The Ministry of Industry and Trade currently contains a unit which deals with Intellectual Property Rights issues, directed by Fadhl Mansour.
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