Intellectual Property Rights Indaba

The Free Market Foundation's 5th annual Intellectual Property Rights Indaba, Innovation for accelerated growth, will be held at the FNB Conference & Learning Centre, Grayston Drive, Sandton on Thursday, October 20.

The annual IPR Indaba is intended to increase the awareness of all South Africans of the importance of intellectual property rights in the economy and their everyday lives. This year we will be focussing particularly on innovation and growth.

The one-day conference is free of charge and is sponsored by Microsoft.

Our overseas speaker is John Weresh, General Manager for Worldwide IP OPS, Microsoft.

Our programme includes the following topics:

Innovation and its challenges
Intellectual property and challenges in a dynamic innovation system
Social media / medium: The legal challenges and IP implications
Copyright, artists and the digital environment
Nurturing the arts through IP protection
Cloud computing
The economic impact of cloud computing in South Africa
Regulatory / IP environment required for cloud computing
The prime dividend of software innovation: Jobs
Healthcare and IP
Implications for intellectual property from a competition law perspective
Second topic to follow
Government's software procurement policy
Constitutionality and the South African state's software procurement policy
Government's FOSS policy: Progress and problems
What should government's software procurement policy be?
Counting the cost of counterfeit
Two topics to follow