Project Completion Report s2

Project Completion Report

Please submit through your APEC Secretariat Program Director within 2 months of project completion.

SECTION A: Project profile

SECTION B: Project report and reflection

Briefly answer each of the questions below. Section B should be a maximum of 2-3 pages, inclusive of the questions and tables provided.

1.  Project description: In 3-4 sentences, describe the project and its main objectives.

The Project was carried out from June to November 2011. The 4-week online course, based on IP Xpedite, was provided to 406 participants from 13 APEC economies from mid June to mid July. A follow-up classroom course was held in Daejeon, Korea during October 3~7, 2001. The participants were divided into two groups, the Intermediate Group and the Advanced Group according to participants’ IP knowledge. 24 selected participants from 14 APEC economies were provided with a customized curriculum that included patent search practices, introductory patent strategies, case studies and a seminar to discuss and share current IP issues in each APEC economy.

The Project's main objectives were to :

increase public education and awareness on the strategic use of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) information for protecting and commercially exploiting IPRs

improve the capacity of IP officials, SMEs researchers and university students to strengthen their utilization of IP information and avoid overlapping R&D, resulting in the economic growth of APEC member economies

provide an interactive educational environment where IP experts can collaborate with SME researchers to discuss current IP issues and propose ideas for more effective IP systems.

2.  Meeting your objectives: Describe how the project went, with reference to the objectives laid out in your project proposal. Include any major changes to your project as proposed and any problems or obstacles that you encountered and how you overcame them.

Out of the 406 participants from 13 economies who took the online course; 38.42% were university students, 26.85% were government officials and 25.12% were private corporate employees, indicating that the online course was promoted to a wide scope audience ranging from entry-level students to IP experts. The offline course was provided to 24 participants from 14 economies. 67%s of the classroom course participants were government officials while 13% were private corporate employees and 3% were school officials.

Compared to the course two years ago, this classroom course was revised and redesigned to acknowledge the diverse needs of potential participants. The classroom course was planned in consideration of the participants’ work experience, expertise and knowledge in intellectual property so that it would suit university students, IP officials, SME researchers, etc.

The curriculum was developed and implemented to meet the needs of participants with limited exposure to intellectual property. It focused on basic knowledge and patent searches for the Intermediate Group. On the other end, the Advanced Group was challenged with topics and tasks that required strategic utilization of IP information focusing on patentability standards, case studies, economy report presentations and a discussion seminar. On the last two days of the course, all participants were engaged in competitive team projects and a lively discussion seminar about current IP issues

3.  Project evaluation: Describe how you evaluated the project and provide some details on the results of the evaluation (e.g. participant evaluation, peer review of publication, measurement of indicators, statistics demonstrating use of outputs etc.).

A survey was conducted at the end of the Classroom Course from 23 participants and the results are as follows :

·  To the question, “Do you think the Classroom Course was effective in increasing your knowledge and awareness on the intellectual property rights information?”, 70% answered “very positive” and 30% answered “positive”.

·  To the question, “Do you think the Classroom Course will be beneficial in strengthening your utilization of IP information?”, 65% responded “very positive”, 30% “positive” and 5% “average”.

·  To the question, “Do you think the Classroom Course provided you an interactive educational environment where you were able to discuss current IP issues and propose ideas for more effective IP systems?”, 48% replied “very positive”, 30% “positive” and 22% “average”

4.  Key findings: Describe one or two examples of important findings arising from the project (e.g. results from surveys or case studies, insights provided by participants or experts, policy recommendations, roadblocks to progress on an issue etc.).

The key feature this project provides is a customized curriculum according to the level of participants. The curriculum of the Advanced Group was specifically customized for participants with patent examining backgrounds. And for those who don't have IP background Intermediate Group was prepared.

At the start of the project, it was clearly communicated to each IP office regarding the selection of participants from each group. However, it was evident that each economy had their own standards of nominating participants for the classroom course. As a result, half of the participants in the Group were examiners or former examiners, which could have made the course material difficult to fully comprehend.

This made us once again realize it is imperative that the potential participants be selected with care to raise the effectiveness of and the quality of the education.

Therefore, we consider selecting the candidates with background similar in nature, for example consisting of only engineering students, to maximize the efficacy of the learning experience, or we must add an additional screening process for the candidates in the form of an IP essay if another similar IP awareness project is offered in the future.

5.  Next steps: Describe any follow-up steps or projects that you recommend. Have you already planned or begun these? What role could APEC play in any follow-up?

We are currently drafting a concept note for a project of a summer school program that is mainly targeted to university students with engineering background from APEC economies. Like previous projects, the participants will be required to pass a series of tasks and tests in order to be selected. We request APEC to communicate the relevant governments of APEC economy in order to effectively publicize the program to as many students as possible.

6.  Feedback for the Secretariat: Do you have any suggestions for more effective management of projects in the future? Any assessment of consultants, experts or participants that you would like to share? (The Secretariat collates and examines feedback to identify trends for ongoing evaluation of our project management and/or communications systems.)

N/A

7.  Participant information: Please provide details, where applicable. Insert rows as needed.

8.  Outputs: Please provide details, where applicable. Change headings or insert rows as needed.

SECTION C: Budget

Attach a detailed breakdown of the APEC- provided project budget, including:

·  Planned costs (using most recently approved budget figures)

·  Actual expenditures

·  Variance notes: An explanation of any budget line under- or over-spent by 20% or more.

Please refer to APPENDIX A

SECTION D: Appendices or additions

Please attach any of the following. This information will help us better understand your project, support overseers of similar projects and plan for future projects.

q  List of experts or consultants utilised, with job titles and contact details

Please refer to APPENDIX B

q  List of participants, with job titles and contact details

Please refer to APPENDIX C

q  Event agendas

Please refer to APPENDIX D

q  Links to any relevant websites or online material (e.g. reports, resources created)

http://global.ipacademy.net/apec/ (Project promotion website)

http://global.ipacademy.net (Online course website)

* Please refer to attached file named “economyreports.zip”

q  Results of participant feedback or other project evaluation (raw and/or analysed)

Please refer to APPENDIX E

q  Any other relevant information or resources that would help us learn more about your project

Please refer to APPENDIX F

[APPENDIX A]

Expenses

[APPENDIX B]

Speakers

[APPENDIX C]

Participants of CLASSROOM COURSE

Participants of ONLINE COURSE