The Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Foundation would allocate funds for the protection of intellectual property (IP) rights to encourage the young entrepreneurs into technological innovations, Industries Minister Dilip Barua said yesterday.
“The plan is aimed at turning Bangladesh into a middle-income country by introducing information technology in the industry sector,” Barua said.
He said this while speaking at a seminar on ‘Protecting Intellectual Property in Digital World’, at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in Dhaka Saturday. The seminar was organised on the sideline of a three-day ‘Digital World 2012’ at the centre.
Many technological analysts, specialists and professionals joined the seminar where founder of Bangladesh Copyright and IP Forum Barrister A B M Hamidul Mishbah and Barrister KM Tanjib-ul-Alam, Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh, presented two key-note papers.
Speakers and discussants underscored the need for building mass awareness to put an end to the piracy of IP and establishing separate IP court to ensure justice in this regard. They also identified lack of financing as the key barrier to the country’s technological innovation and said IP infrastructures must be strengthened alongside financing to IT, which will eventually help create many jobs.
IP could be an important tool to make a ‘Digital Bangladesh’- a joint effort has become indispensable to protect IP rights, according to the speakers. The minister urged young people to devote themselves to protect intellectual property.
Dilip Barua said the people involved in research activities at different levels should register their innovations quickly so that no one can usurp or illegally use their IP.
Noted IT expert Mustafa Jabbar moderated the seminar.
Source: Daily Star, Daily Sun and Financial Express