The Department of Intellectual Property (DoIP) and Asia and the Pacific (ASPAC) Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held a virtual meeting on January 13, 2021 to discuss and provide feedback on prior and ongoing projects activities. Through such meetings, ASPAC Bureau gathers feedback on several major projects that they have worked on with partner countries. Mr. Mathias Mulumba has been hired as a consultant to ASPAC to conduct these consultations over a short period of time between December, 2020 and January, 2021, through a series of virtual interviews, group discussions and a survey.  In line with this, DoIP was invited to participate in the consultation and provide feedback on activities under following ongoing WIPO projects with Bhutan: 

1. The Formulation and Implementation of National IP Strategies (NIPS); and 
2. The Resource and Management Diagnostics Project for IP Offices (IPOD). 

The consultation focused on understanding the relevancy of the projects; factors enabling and/or constraining the processes and implementation for the two projects; strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and the impact or threats in the purview of the current pandemic.  In addition to providing our feedback, the Director General and project coordinating officers from DoIP shared views on the draft IPOD report’s recommendations and possible way forward in implementing some of them. Numerous progress made under the direction of our National IP Policy’s objectives have also been shared, along with some constraints faced in fully implementing all seven objectives of the policy. The officials from DoIP also completed two short online surveys designed to collect views that will further inform the ASPAC Bureau. 

As mentioned above, the feedback received is expected to aid ASPAC Bureau’s 2021 planning process in delivering set objectives in a different way and possibly defining new objectives. Accordingly, they would also explore alternatives and viable options for delivering effective technical assistance cooperation activities in Bhutan given the current context and global developments.

The DG, DoIP thanked the WIPO for the continued and unstinting support and reiterated the following requests: 

1. Inclusion of Bhutan from the next publication of the Global Innovation Index, GII-2021;
2. Office automation and ICTization including the online application filing system;
3. Continued training for our local TISCs;
4. Trainings for our Judiciary and enforcement agencies; and 
5. Instituting Quality Control measures through office manuals and procedure documentation and certification/qualification into ISO 9001.