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An Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) Seminar, a two-day event aimed at helping Hong Kong businessmen to understand the concept of IAM and its applications, opened today (November 21) in Hong Kong.
Speaking at the opening of the seminar, the President of the Legislative Council, Mrs Rita Fan, said that IAM was a process through which enterprises took a step backward to review their range of enterprise knowledge so that they were better prepared to spring forward with new creative ideas.
"The process of intellectual asset management provides enterprises with tools for finding the knowledge that they already possess, but which is not being exploited effectively. It provides a framework for gathering enterprise knowledge, assessing its value and finding ways to exploit it in new ways to create new streams of revenue," Mrs Fan said.
The Director of Intellectual Property, Mr Stephen Selby, said that the seminar was a new initiative from the department to introduce the IAM concept to Hong Kong enterprises, especially the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
"IAM is not just a concept for big corporations. In fact, it is a concept that all of us can apply. Every organisation can collect creative ideas from its employees and customers," said Mr Selby.
"If we can codify this knowledge, we may discover some valuable intangible assets and know-how. Further down the road, this knowledge can be protected as intellectual property. Intellectual property can create competitive advantages for the organisation and open up new ways to create wealth."
The two-day seminar was organised by the Intellectual Property Department (IPD) of the HKSAR Government, with the support of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, the Hong Kong Knowledge Management Society and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.
Participants include Hong Kong businessmen and intellectual property practitioners; government officials and scholars from Hong Kong, the Mainland and overseas, while guest speakers include experts from Germany, Singapore, the US, the Mainland, Hong Kong and Macau.
IAM is the management of all the recorded knowledge assets (including intellectual property) in an organisation which have the potential to create value along the lines of helping to achieve the business, organisational or societal plan. IAM is a holistic concept: the value release activities flowing from an IAM approach are context specific and time bound.
For details of the seminar, please visit the IPD's website at www.ipd.gov.hk.
Ends/Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Issued at HKT 17:01
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