Mr. Myrick had planned to stay four days in Cairo from 1st to 4th of March. The Egyptian Group set an intensive agenda of meetings for the two working days (Thursday & Sunday) and a sight seeing program for the weekend (Friday & Saturday).
On Thursday March 1st, Mr. Myrick had a meeting with Mrs. Hoda Serageldine and Mr. Samir Hamza respectively President and Vice President of the Egyptian Association for Protection of Intellectual Property (AEPPI).
This meeting was followed by a working luncheon with the thirteen members of the Board in a restaurant overlooking the Nile.
The discussions addressed the general problems encountered by Egyptian practitioners in the field of IPR’s protection as well as IPRs issues related to the industry since the Board of AEPPI includes five industrialists.
On Saturday evening, after a long day of sight seeing, Mr. & Mrs. Myrick joined some members of the Board and their spouses for a casual dinner in a typical old restaurant in Medieval Cairo.
In the morning of Sunday March 4th, AEPPI organized an important meeting with high officials at the Ministry of Trade & Industry namely: Dr. Samiha Fawzi, First Assistant to the Minister, Councilor Hisham Ragab, legal counsel to the Minister and Dr. Mostafa Aboul-Einein, Head of the Commercial Registry.
Mr. Ron Myrick introduced briefly AIPPI to them, explained its characteristics, purposes, principles, past traditions and future plans. He offered the Book of the AIPPI Centennial to Dr. Samiha Fawzi on behalf of the AIPPI Bureau.
The Government Officials were very impressed with the work of AIPPI and discussed with Mr. Myrick topics of particular interest to them such as Free Trade Agreements and IPR’s related issues, thereto.
It was agreed that these issues should be addressed during the forthcoming WIPO/AEPPI Symposium scheduled on 2 & 3 December 2007. Mr. Myrick proposed that AIPPI should contribute with the Egyptian Association into studying the matter further.
On the same day at 6 p.m., Mr. Myrick met with the membership of AEPPI and gave a presentation about the role of the National Groups in developing the International Association.
Mr. Myrick asked the Members what they expected from AIPPI and explained what AIPPI expected from them.
The members of the Egyptian Group expressed the wish that AIPPI makes itself more visible in the Middle East by attending the Regional/National events organized by the local groups.
Mr. Myrick promised to convey these remarks to the Bureau and finally, he highlighted the forthcoming plans of AIPPI for 2007 and 2008.
This meeting was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Trade & Industry and the Head of the Patent Office together with 50 members of AEPPI.
The visit of Mr. Myrick had very positive results. It paved the way to better cooperation between AIPPI Bureau and the National Groups in an area of the World still in need of support to develop further the concepts of intellectual property rights.