The Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Daren Tang visited Técnico – Alameda campus, on 30th May, during his stay in Lisbon, and participated in an informal conversation about Intellectual Property. Accompanied by his entourage and the Portuguese Ambassador in Geneva, Rui Macieira, Director General Daren Tang, joined the Técnico President Rogério Colaço, and the Vice-President for Operations and Corporate Partnerships Pedro Amaral, to discuss Técnico’s Intellectual Property strategy and the major challenges.

The visit was also attended by Susana Armário, representative of the Portuguese Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), the team of Técnico Intellectual Property Unit, and three Técnico researchers who shared their testimonies.

“Our goal with this visit is to understand the challenges and how we can adjust our performance to support you. I look forward to hearing your presentations. It is not easy to deal with the issues of Intellectual Property processes, with publishing or licensing issues, but we want to look at Intellectual Property as a tool to create a better society”, said Daren Tang.

“The patent process should not take too long. It is important that the ideas effectively reach society and that they respond to a problem, a challenge. This is the strategy we want to adopt, in order to make this whole process more efficient”, highlighted Pedro Amaral.

Frederico Ferreira (Técnico / Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences – iBB), Júlio Henriques and Rui Silva, researchers and inventors who attended the meeting, shared their work and the greatest difficulties they faced regarding Intellectual Property processes. Daren Tang tried to answer all questions and left some advice.