Held by Science & Technology in the Presence of Managers and Officials of Science & Technology Units in the Kingdom
Workshop to Discuss Intellectual Property Policies of Science and Technology National Plan

King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) held a workshop at its headquarters yesterday to discuss the final wording of policies of the intellectual property of the National Plan for Science and Technology projects with the aim of finalizing gathering points of views of the participating bodies to discuss them in the next meeting of the Supervisory Committee.
Prince Dr. Turki Bin Saud Bin Mohammad Al Saud, KACST Vice President for Research Institutes and Head of Advisory Committee for the National Plan, emphasized the importance 
of having a policy of intellectual property, noting that it must be looked at from a national perspective, so as to maximize the revenues of intellectual property to benefit researchers from this policy applied by National Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation (NPSTI) in marketing research projects.
The Prince stressed that establishing the Saudi Company for Development and Technology Investment is one the most prominent recent efforts that enhance orientations of the National Plan and achieve its strategic objectives adding that this company aims to take advantage of KACST’s research outputs and applied programs, universities and other research centers besides technology transfer to the Kingdom .
The Prince highlighted that establishing this government-owned company that will be responsible for marketing researches’ products in the kingdom,  represents an ideal opportunity for universities and research centers that recently carried out  activities aiming at establishing companies related to endowments where companies can cooperate and coordinate with this National Company for the right investment of technology and its marketing.
Dr. Turki stressed the need to benefit from the experiences of other countries stating that U.S. universities re-considered the optimal invest in intellectual property adding that the same case extends to many of our national universities that must diversify their sources of income through endowments of scientific research, technology valleys, research chairs besides other sources.
KACST Vice President for Research Institutes and Head of Advisory committee for the National Plan, emphasized on the importance of coordinating and integrating efforts of the concerned authorities assigned to implement policies of the National Plan for Science and Technology due to the contribution   of this plan to some components of science and technology national array that currently started to integrate and mature. The Prince stated that a good number of researches in universities, KACST national research centers and other research centers have been supported in a way that makes these researches integrated. Dr. Turki also underlined that there is flexibility and great support to university researches through the NPSTI.
Then Mr. Sorshan, from SRI International for intellectual property and licensing, discussed the most prominent aspects of intellectual property policy for research and development pertinent NPSTI-supported projects; indicating that this policy covered several issues such as the procedural terms. He also gave a synopsis on the kingdom’s investments in intellectual property and objectives of such policy.
SRI Representative explained the mechanism of applying this policy focusing on limits of intellectual property, its management and marketing, revenues that would be harvested by universities. He also gave a presentation that incited researchers to get intellectual propriety.
The workshop hosted a large number of stakeholders where elaborated discussions contributed to setting the general frames and approving the final draft for intellectual polices in NPSTI that will be submitted for approval in the next meeting of National Plan Supervisory Committee.