Egypt's Prime Minister Mostafa Masbouly speaks during the launch in Cairo

Egypt launched its first intellectual property (IP) strategy in September 2022. The strategy will be implemented by the higher education sector and research institutions among others across the country. The aim is to create a research environment and develop a higher education system that can prepare and encourage researchers to innovate and present new ideas which, in turn, can be converted into intellectual property.

The five-year IP strategy (2022-27 ) launch, held under the patronage of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and also attended by the WIPO’s Director General is in line with the WIPO Development Agenda, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and Egypt’s Vision 2030.

The strategy indicated that Egypt suffered from some weaknesses related to IP, including a lack of expertise and developed human resources, the lack of integration between scientific and industry research, as well as the absence of a comprehensive exclusive pool of IP assets owned by the state.

According to Professor Hamed Ead, the director of the Science Heritage Center at Cairo University, IP is a highly desirable asset in higher education institutions and universities which could be a tool for reaping unexpected financial gains and will be very beneficial for the university of the future.

“An IP strategy, therefore, will help universities and higher education institutions to become more involved in overseeing technology transfers [which can help them] to obtain research funding from private investors as well as [from] licensing IP,” he added.

WIPO Director General Daren Tang pledged WIPO’s support for Egypt’s academic research institutions and research centers working to ensure that innovative and creative ideas are properly commercialized in the market and bring economic benefit to young researchers.

He added that universities and public research institutions (PRIs) are the factories of the knowledge economy. Intellectual property (IP) adds another mechanism for universities to disseminate the knowledge that they generate and to have that knowledge used in the economic sector.

Photo courtsey / Ahram Online

Article by Jedidah Mwangi

https://www.wipo.int/about-wipo/en/dg_tang/news/2022/news_0052.html