President’s Message

LES Singapore

President’s Message – for 2019 to 2020

Dear Fellow Members of LES Singapore,

Our Society had its beginnings as the Licensing Society (Singapore) (LSS) which was officially launched at the Licensing Asia 1999 Conference on 6 November 1999.  LSS was admitted as a member of the Licensing Executives Society International (LESI) in May 2000 and the Society was renamed as Licensing Executives Society (Singapore).  Hence, this year 2020 would be the 21st anniversary of the founding of LES Singapore.

We have much to celebrate and be thankful for.  One of our founding members, Audrey Yap, has been elected as the President of LESI for the term 2020 – 2021.  We are all rightfully proud and honored to have Audrey as the President of LESI and will give our unstinting support for her term.

LES Singapore strives to be a vibrant society, bringing value to its members.  To foster the knowledge of Licensing issues and Intellectual Property rights, LES Singapore organizes various events where members can enjoy thought provoking seminars presented by expert speakers and panelist.  These events also provide a good opportunity for members to network with like-minded professionals and individuals.  A list of the events that LES Singapore has organized recently include :

  • 25 July 2019 : Joint event with NTUitive – talk on Brand Valuation by Mr Samir Dixit, Managing Director of Brand Finance Asia Pacific
  • 27 – 28 August 2019 : Supported IP Week @ Singapore organized by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS)
  • 28 August 2019 : seminar on the Development and Evolution of the Intellectual Property Ecosystem in China. The talk was conducted in Chinese by Mr Zhou Peng, the founder of IPR Daily, China’s largest IP technology media
  • 10 Sep 2019 : Joint event with Questel on the topic of Intellectual Property Commercialization, with a panel comprised of Anna Fong, Head of IP Consulting & Services, Jeferson Staelens, Legal Tech Product Manager of Questel Singapore and Lionel Tan, President LES Singapore
  • 23 October 2019 : joint seminar with the accounting firm RSM Stone Forest on the topic of “Valuation of Intellectual Property”.  This seminar was presented by Mr Terence Ang, Partner of RSM and Treasurer of LES Singapore
  • 17 Jan 2020 : joint seminar with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) on the topic of “Protection of Intellectual Assets and Resolving Disputes – the WIPO Advantage”.  Peter Willimott, Senior Program Officer from the WIPO Singapore Office and Chiara Accornero, Associate Legal Officer from the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center presented.
  • 26 March 2020 : joint webinar with the Singapore Land Authority GeoWorks on the topic of “Intellectual Property and Licensing Issues in the GeoSpatial Industry” with Chiew Yu Sarn, Vice President of LES Singapore presenting the webinar.
  • 6 June 2020 : joint webinar with WIPO on the topic of the conducting of Mediation Hearings.  Chiara Accornero from WIPO and Joyce A Tan (a distinguished mediator) shared their experiences.
  • 30 July 2020 : (upcoming) joint webinar with Darts-IP on “The World Beyond FRAND: Deciding over Reasonable Royalties as a Measure of Damage”. The presenters will be Chia Ming-Jie, Exco member of LES Singapore and Mr Francois Neuville, Executive Director of Darts-IP.

With the Covid 19 situation, we have had to adapt from our usual in-person seminars to presently conducting online webinars.  However, one good outcome is that LESI and the various country societies are also conducting many webinars of interesting topics.  These webinars are available to LES Singapore members to log on and participate.

LES Singapore had been selected to host the LES Asia Pacific conference in Singapore.  The initial plan was to host an in-person conference in Singapore in August 2020.  For this purpose, the facilities at Maxwell Chambers had been booked and even the dinner venue at Aura, The National Gallery had been reserved for the event.  However, in light of the ongoing restrictions on large scale meetings and travel restrictions, the event will now be held as a fully online even in October 2020.  We hope all our members will join us for this event when we publish more details about it.

Moving ahead, we all have to adapt to the new circumstances.  The Basic and Intermediate Licensing courses which LES Singapore holds each year with IPOS in November will also have to be modified to be conducted online and via a virtual classroom.  Nevertheless, we will do our best to keep relevant and continue to organize seminars and events to allow our members to keep abreast of developments in the licensing industry and Intellectual Property field.  We also hope to foster closer interaction with the various LES chapters in the Asia Pacific region, so as to increase networking opportunities and knowledge sharing about trends that may be useful in our members line of work.

I hope to be able to meet up with all members again once the situation improves.   Till then, please  keep healthy and stay safe!

Yours faithfully,

Lionel Tan

President

LES Singapore