IFIA General Assembly: Thirty-Fifth Session

IFIA General Assembly 2018, hosted by the China Association of Inventions, was organized on Friday, 14th September in Foshan, China from 10 am to 12 pm with the participation of 38 delegates of IFIA members.

Before the meeting started, Mr. Zengpei Xuan, CAI Deputy Director welcomed the participants both to the IEI & WIIF 2018 and to Foshan city and wished them an enjoyable time.

Afterward, Mr. Raymond Yip, HKTDC Deputy Executive Director who was invited to attend the event as a distinguished guest, delivered a short speech presenting the platform titled “AsiaIP Exchange”, a free online intellectual properties trading platform and database connecting users to the global IP players

Then, IFIA President, Alireza Rastegar, welcomed the participating members and thanked CAI for hosting the General Assembly announcing the official opening of the event.

IFIA activity report covering the period from 2014 to 2018 was presented informing the members about the projects undertaken to boost IFIA’s performance in the area of commercialization, patent protection, and promotion of clean technologies. It gained the approval of General Assembly members while appreciating the initiatives taken by IFIA President to develop IFIA at an international level.

Next, the financial report of 2017 and 2018 was provided by IFIA Treasurer and approved by the General Assembly members.

As proposed by Mr. Hussein Hujic, IFIA Director, slight modifications were applied on IFIA Statutes article one both in English and French versions.

Following that, the nominees for IFIA presidency were introduced and the General Assembly members were requested to cast their votes in the ballot box to act according to IFIA Statutes. The candidates were Adnan Al Ramazani Al Naimi and Alireza Rastegar Abbasalizadeh.

Mr. Husein Hujic, Mr. Zoran Barisic and Mr. Michal Szota chaired the meeting and counted the votes. Finally, it was announced that Mr. Alireza Rastegar gained 38 votes against 5 votes earned by Mr. Al Naimi and Mr. Rastegar was re-elected for IFIA Presidency for the next four year mandate 2018-2022.

After that, 25 nominees for IFIA Executive Committee were presented and General Assembly members were requested to elect 21 members and cast their votes in the ballot box to act according to IFIA Statutes.

IFIA Directors counted the votes and it was announced that out of the 25 candidates, four of them namely Mr. Lukas, Zmeskal from Czech Republic, Ms. Teriza J. Ridha from Iraq, Mr. Jalal Alnakasah from Libya and Mr. Fernandez Lopes from Portugal were not admitted as IFIA Executive Committee members for the period of 2018-2020.

Lastly, IFIA President appointed Mr. Yu Huarong, CAI Executive Vice President & Secretary General as one of the directors.

The meeting was concluded as IFIA President conferred the Executive Committee membership certificate to the members.