With the growing number of startups, more Hong Kong people are embracing technology and entrepreneurship with unprecedented enthusiasm. While proving concepts and building values are important, entrepreneurs must protect their most important and valuable intellectual property (IP) particularly in their growth stage. As a result of the lack of knowledge in IP laws and protection strategies, startups do not realize that their business success are often closely related to their duly protected IP, and inadequate protection often leads to detrimental results such as loss of market shares and profits, disputes among collaborators, and, in some occasions, prolonged proceedings of litigation.

In this seminar, Dr. Albert Wai-Kit Chan will share his expertise and experience on the protection of IP, in particular patents.  The seminar will introduce the audience to concepts relating to IP, relevant laws, and the importance of IP protection, with a focus on patents and startup companies.  Dr. Roy Yee-Loi Chan will elaborate on strategies of patent protection and use case studies to demonstrate good and bad practices of IP protection for startups. The seminar offers a great opportunity for those who would like to build their own businesses to learn what they really should know about IP protection.

About the Speakers:

Dr. Albert Wai-Kit Chan is the Partner of the Law Offices of Albert Wai-Kit Chan, PLLC, practicing in all areas of intellectual property law (including patents, trademarks, copyrights, business transactions, litigation, licensing, technology transfer, evaluation, and trade secrets) and specializing in biotechnology. He works extensively with clients ranging from individual inventors to well-established prestigious research institutes in the U.S., China, and abroad. Dr. Chan is founder and director of the United States-China Intellectual Property Institute, Inc., a non-profit organization. Dr. Chan is a registered foreign lawyer in Hong Kong, where he also heads Albert Wai-Kit Chan Intellectual Property Limited.

Roy Yee-Loi Chan, Ph.D., Intellectual Property Engineer, has over 7 years of biomedical engineering research experience in fields spanning from implant development, drug development, medical adhesive improvement and metastatic cancer cell identification. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Medical Engineering (2005) from the University of Hong Kong and was awarded his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (2010) and M.Phil.in Orthopedics & Traumatology (2007) from the same school. He passed the Chinese National Qualification Examination for Patent Agents in 2015 and completed the Renmin University of China’s LL.M. programme in 2019.  He has extensive experience in devising IP strategy for startups and prosecuting patent applications extending across a wide range of technologies including pharmaceutical and life science.

Moderator: Prof. Jyh-An Lee, Professor and Executive Director of CFRED, CUHK LAW

The Hong Kong Law Society has awarded this seminar 1.5 Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points.