IP Academy

• What is the Intellectual Property Academy?
• Rationale for the Intellectual Property Academy?
• Reducing knowledge gaps
• Why in Israel?

What is the Intellectual Property Academy

The Intellectual Property (IP) Academy is a joint initiative of MSD Israel and the Stockholm Network.  Formed in 2005, the IP Academy constitutes a unique discussion and learning forum in Israel focusing on the making of pharmaceutical IPR policy. The forum consists of a select group of people – policy makers, members of Parliament, experts, academics, medical directors, and tech-transfer managers all of whom make, or are affected by,  IP-policy in Israel.  The IP Academy focuses on IP policy issues including:

• Linkage between IPRs and foreign direct investments.
• International IP Standards
• Different aspects of pharmaceutical patents (such as the process of patent examination)
• IPRs and the balance between research-based and generic based companies (dual industry structure)
• Process of Intellectual Property policy-making
• IPRs and technology transfer in the biomedical sector

Dr. Meir Perez Pugatch, of the School of Public Health University of Haifa, and Head of the Stockholm Network Intellectual Property and Competition Programme is the academic manager of the IP Academy.

Rationale for the Intellectual Property Academy?

IP is becoming one of the most influential and controversial issues in today's knowledge-based society. At the macro level, IP policy affects a wide range of issues, such as international trade policy (multilateral, regional and bilateral agreements), the legal manifestation of ownership of breakthrough technologies, foreign direct investment, innovation climates, competition rules, monopolistic behaviour and public health. At the micro level, intellectual property rights are strongly embedded in contemporary business models. IP is becoming increasingly dominant in the design and execution of basic and applied research, the evaluation of intangible assets, the protection and management of knowledge assets and to the business strategies of knowledge-based industries and companies.  A positive effect of the growing importance and impact of the IP field is professionalism and specialisation. This however also leads to an undesirable detachment between different elements and themes of IP, which are becoming more and more ‘divorced’ from each other. For example, copyright, patent and trademark specialists, as well as those dealing with the legal, economic, business and political aspects of IPRs, increasingly seem to operate on parallel tracks.  Therefore, the need to create an interdisciplinary IP centre is now more timely than ever.  

Reducing knowledge gaps

A key objective of the IP Academy is to help reduce knowledge gaps  and to increase participants' understanding of the concepts of pharmaceutical IP environments and of the policy making of IPRs.  Such knowledge gaps are both vertical – in the sense of insufficient knowledge about a given element of pharmaceutical IP policy-making (such as the positive relations between IPRs and investments – and horizontal – in the sense that while participants may be familiar with one aspect of IP policy-making they are usually unaware or lack sufficient knowledge of other aspects in this field. The IP academy seeks to reduce these knowledge gaps by acting as a platform for knowledge and data (in the first instance by bringing internationally renowned experts who present different IP issues) and by exposing participants in the forum to different aspects of policy-making which are not part of their daily activities.  The IP Academy also equips participants with a broader overview of the subject of pharmaceutical IP policies, emphasising the linkages between the different components of this environment.  

Why in Israel?

Israel is a knowledge-based economy. Its scientific and research capabilities, technological infrastructure, and biomedical potential are recognised and acknowledged globally. In fact Israel is considered a leader in these areas. In the pharmaceutical and biomedical fields, Israeli hospitals, universities and research centers are highly advanced and as such they engage in vigorous R&D activities, to which there is also a considerable commercial potential.   At the same time Israel's pharmaceutical IP environment is very complex and challenging, due to numerous factors. To a large extent Israel today is  a microcosm of many of the discussions on IP policy making that currently take place around the world. Creating the IP Academy in Israel is therefore a worthwhile experience. It is also hoped that this model will be implemented in other countries that seek to deal with different issues of IPRs in a more multidisciplinary and holistic manner. The IP Academy is sponsored in part by Merck's International Grants Committee.