Creation of Institutional IP Policies for Academic Institutions in the Arab Region

This is the story about the creation of IP Institutional Policies for academmic institutions in the Arab region. IP institutional policies are an important tool for an efficient protection and transfer of research outcomes from academic institutions to public and private users. It provides legal transparency, assures ownership of universities over the results of intellectual works of researchers and provides clear guidelines for management of academic inventions towards the market and society. In order to support promotion of IP policies in the Arab Region, WIPO customized national projects on Insitutional IP Policies for Academic institutions, and applied as Pilot Projects in Egypt and Jordan. The concept was based on the idea of national harmonization of IPR management legal framework in academic institutions to facilitate internal and external IP collaboration and commercialization of research outcomes in the Arab Region. Results were significant. In Jordan, it triggereddevelopment and adoption of a Jordanian Model of Institutional IP Policies with practical application in academic institutions. The project in Egypt was far-reaching and resulted in the adoption of IP policies in 22 universities and research institutions. The lessons learned will be also available for other countries in the Arab Region to undertake actions on the national level and create favorable institutional IP legal framework for successful technology transfer and IP collaboration in the region and worldwide. How IP Policy changed your TT practices? Do you think that the National Model of IP Policy strengthened or facilitated development of institutional IP Policies?