Impact of Patents Concept Training Course Concludes
07 Jan 2007By Bashar AlAshhab
AMMAN - The Licensing Executive Society- Arab Countries (LES-AC) in cooperation with Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Professional Training Group (TAGI TRAINING) concluded a training course entitled “Impact of Patents Concept: Elaboration on Medical Drugs and Pharmaceutical Composition in the Developing Countries,” January 6-7, 2007 at the Radisson SAS Hotel, Amman.
The course aimed at educating participants about the importance and impact of patent concept with an elaboration on pharmaceuticals in the developing countries from different sides.
The key speakers in the course were Dr. Samiha Al-Kalyoubi, professor at the Cairo University in Egypt and Engineer Ahmad Al-Zu’bi, head of Patent Registration Office at the Jordanian Ministry of Industry and Trade.
“I believe that it is a must to organize such specialized workshops and training courses to promote awareness regarding patents mainly in the field of medical drugs and pharmaceuticals,” Dr. Al-Kalyoubi told ag-IP-news Agency.
In her paper, Al-Kalyoubi underlined the concept of a patent, the expansion in the concept of patent to include inventions related to chemical products in the field of food and chemical pharmaceutical products according to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement (TRIPs) and the commitment of the countries that are party to this agreement.
She concluded with the mechanism in which the Egyptian legislator deals with the potential of malpractice in raising the prices of products in the field of medical drugs and pharmaceutical compositions.
The course discussed several topics related to the concept of novelty as a condition for granting patents, using patents in scientific research and development (R&D), and the extension of the period of time given for developing countries regarding pharmaceuticals. It targeted lawyers, specialized government officers, businessmen, owners of pharmaceuticals factories, medical associations and any interested parties.
In addition, the event shed light on issues such as; Jordanian and Egyptian laws, Jordanian Patent Law and the conditions for patents including novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability and their compliance with international standards, agreements and public order and morality.
Moreover, the lecturers highlighted matters related to arbitrariness in price increase of medical drugs under the Egyptian Law, criteria and standards adopted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for patent registration and price fixing of medical products, procedures for patent examination and industrial applicability in addition to the acceptance of patent, publication in official gazette and objection period.
Among the topics discussed were the compliance of inventive step and industrial applicability with international standards and agreements, additional patents and the creation of new patents for previously granted ones will be also tackled.
“In Jordan, it takes about eight to twelve years for a pharmaceutical patent application to become a market product,” Al-Zu’bi commented.
“The overall event was successful; the target topics were discussed and clarified by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. We look forward to having future training courses to raise awareness, especially in the pharmaceutical industry,” he added.
LES-Arab Countries (LES-AC) is the regional society of Licensing Executives Society International (LESI) family that is made up of 31 national and regional societies worldwide. It is composed of individual members involved in the profession of licensing and other aspects of transferring or profiting from intellectual property. Its mission centers on investing in human capacity to create Arab executive professionals in licensing and technology transfer, and to assist in developing the economic growth for the Arab world through encouraging, facilitating and enforcing IP licensing and R&D investment.
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