Minister Michael Ahern welcomes World Intellectual Property Day 2006

The Minister for Trade and Commerce, Mr. Michael Ahern, T,D., today (Wednesday 26^th April 2006) welcomed the celebration of World Intellectual Property Day 2006 and, in particular the theme adopted for this year – It starts with an Idea. The Minister was commenting on the message from Kamil Idris, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), commemorating World IP Day that “Ideas shape our world” and that “they are the raw materials on which our future prosperity and heritage depend”.

Minister Ahern said, “We are, whether consciously or otherwise, constantly surrounded by the fruits of human creativity and invention. There can however, sometimes be a lack of public awareness between the link between ideas and human creativity and the concept of intellectual property. World Intellectual Property Day provides an opportunity on the 26^th April each year to improve public understanding of and respect for creativity, innovation, and the intellectual property system by demonstrating their importance in daily life. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on how intellectual property touches all aspects of our lives: how copyright helps bring music to our ears; how industrial design helps shape our world, how trademarks provide reliable signs of quality; and how patenting helps promote ingenious inventions that make life easier, faster and safer”.

Minister Ahern continued, “If ideas are the source of innovation, in turn, innovation is the tool of the entrepreneur. The importance of providing an environment for business in which innovative ideas are encouraged and rewarded has long been and continues to be a core objective of this Government. The necessity to provide a strong protective regime for the rights of the creators of Intellectual Property is a crucial element in building a successful knowledge economy”.

“Failure to create intellectual property, or to use it, means that our future as an economy will become increasingly uncertain. By the same token, if we succeed and continue to do so, ahead of our competitors, it will provide the basis for a successful knowledge society,” Minister Ahern concluded.

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