The LES International Annual Meeting will take place from the 11th until the 14th of April in the Sandton Convention Centre. The focus of the meeting and conference will be innovation and what the role of new growing economies is. Patent lawyers, trademark attorneys, copyright specialists, medical research and innovations experts, and more will attend and discuss various issues on collaboration in innovation.

Emerging economies such as Poland, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, China, Argentina, Chile, India, Mexico, Russia, Indonesia, and South Korea as well as Brazil will thus be the focus as the role of innovation in these countries will be discussed.

One of the patent lawyers that will lead the discussion on publicly funded research, Ms Morne Barradas will give insight into the industry viewpoints. Ms Barradas is an Intellectual Property Advisor at Sasol in Johannesburg. She holds a B Sc Honours degree in Chemistry and an LLB degree.

Patent lawyers attending the LES International Annual Meeting will benefit from attendance of the workshops which will be held in the afternoons for the duration of the meeting and conference.

Areas of interest for patent lawyers at the workshops will include, but are not limited to:

• Civil dispute resolution regarding license agreements – evaluation of procedures and various laws in relevant countries.
• Solar power developments such as the film photovoltaic cell developed in South Africa with commercialisation taking place in Germany.
• How to communicate and collaborate with the South African Technology Innovation Agency.