Event at a glance

On December 2-4, 2012, Tsai Lee & Chen sponsored Intellectual Property Business Congress (IPBC) China, which was held in JW Marriott Hotel, Beijing. Creating and protecting a new invention is merely the beginning to meet the business objective. The real challenge for companies is how to create tangible value for their Intellectual Property assets. The aim of the IPBC congress is to explore best practice in IP transactions and value creation.

In view that a value-creation process may involve inventors, patent, legal and financial professionals, marketing and business experts, as well as policy and decision makers, a growing number of businesses are starting to believe in the necessity of a high-ranking, multi-tasking role in their organizations to handle the overall management of their IP assets. The role of such a chief IP officer in a company is also a focus in the congress.

On the first morning of the congress, our partner Crystal J. Chen hosted a distinguished panel from different industrial sectors to talk about how the role of a Chief IP officer differs from that of a traditional chief IP counsel, and why such a CIPO can efficiently create IP value for the company. The panelists include Mr. Kasim Alfalahi (senior vice president and chief IP officer at Ericsson), Mr. William Coughlin (president and Chief Executive Officer of Ford Global Technologies), Mr. Horacio Gutierrez (corporate vice president and the deputy general counsel of Microsoft), Ruud Peters (Chief Executive Officer of Philips Intellectual Property & Standards) and Mr. Andrew Sant (chief IP officer for Crown Packaging Technology). The interactive, insightful and lively panel discussion was proved a successful one by many conference participants.