ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Federal Education and Professional Training Muhammad Baligh Ur Rehman Wednesday said investment in ‘research and development’ (R&D) was a central point of economic growth.
Addressing a seminar on ‘Innovation -Improving Lives’ organized by Intellectual Property Organization of Pakistan (IPO-Pakistan) in connection with World Intellectual Property Day, he said over the past years incredible growth had been seen in technology on a global scale.
Highlighting the seminar’s theme, the minister said as nations had become more globalized, innovation linkages were quickly gaining prominence, leading to collaboration among them involving academia and industry as a key driver of economic growth.
He said, “Patents are used as a measure of output of innovation and are the most preferred intellectual property in relation to technological innovations.”
Baligh said there was a correlation among innovation, patent filing and development in society. The trend of patent filing, he said, reflected economic growth of a country and social development in that society.
Emphasizing the need of ‘research and development’, he said the government had substantially increased the budget for research and development sector with focus on innovation driven research.
Internationally, he said, private sector was taking lead in spending on research in national economy, which should be followed by the private sector in Pakistan as well. He appreciated the efforts of IPO-Pakistan for creating awareness about intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the country.
Earlier, IPO-Pakistan Chairman Shahid Rashid, in his welcome address, said the vision of IPO was to put Pakistan on the intellectual property map of the world as a compliant and responsible country by promoting and protecting IPRs. “Our mission is to integrate and upgrade IP infrastructure for improved service delivery, increased public awareness and enhanced enforcement coordination for achieving the goal of being an IP based nation,” he added.
He said due to the efficient policies of IPO-Pakistan, the number of applications had soared from 32,443 in 2014-15 to 44,364 in 2015-16 in trademarks, patents, copyrights and industrial designs.
The seminar was also addressed by John K. Dickerson, the Senior Advisor of the Commercial Law Development Programme (CLDP) of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, Chairman, Higher Education Commission (HEC) and Coordinator General, COMSTECH, OIC, Shoukat Hameed Khan.
On the occasion, leading universities from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa established their stalls in an exhibition to draw the attention of the audience to innovation and creativity.
