Research Day Intellectual Property

October 9, 2019

In an effort to bridge the gap between Industry and Research, and within our work of the Scientific Platform, an initiative by IRI/ELCIM, we organized the Industry Research Day - Intellectual Property on Wednesday, October 9. During this half-day session, leading firm Al Yafi IP Group presented on the topic of Intellectual Property.

The world of Intellectual Property is still a mystery to most of us, so we started the session with an introduction to Intellectual Property presented by Tima Hachem and Rimi Kbar from Al Yafi IP group. This firm was established in 1975 and has been providing IP services since 1987. They started by defining IP as any creation of the human mind. Then they went into the details of the different types of IP, mainly patents, trademarks, industrial designs and copyrights.

During the second part of the session, they explained the process of commercialization which is the act of taking research from the lab to the market. They presented the benefits of commercialization and the long road that leads to it. In order to better illustrate the concepts presented, the participants were then divided into three groups and presented with three case studies. During the next thirty minutes, participants studied the case study and prepared a presentation to showcase the product being discussed and make a pitch for potential investment.

Though we have witnessed gaps between industrialists and academia, they are not insurmountable. The Scientific Platform was created to bridge the gap between industrials and researchers, to moderate the conversation and ease the communication between the two. The Scientific Platform will provide options for industrials to help them find researchers and direct them in the right direction. Today’s objective was to showcase research to industrials to start a conversation and begin to raise awareness. The next step will be to invite industrials from other sectors to present their problems so that researchers can help them find solutions.