Dubai Customs’ 9th IPR Award for Schools and Universities is open for registration

Dubai Customs’ IPR Award for Schools and Universities 2015-2016 is now open for registration. School and university students are encouraged to be part of the drive and submit entries in any of the award’s six categories: Best IP Website Name, Best IP Awareness Campaign, Best Innovation/Invention for IPR Protection, Writing a Book (Story), Short Play, and Short Film on IP and the dangers of counterfeit products.

The Award is aimed at inculcating the values and ethics of intellectual property rights in student community, engaging the students in the fight against counterfeiting and raising their awareness on DC’s efforts to safeguard  IP rights of producers and innovators.

Yousuf Ozair Mubarak, director of the IPR Department at Dubai Customs, said: “Dubai Customs’ Intellectual Property (IP) Award for Schools and Universities is aimed at instilling the spirit of competition among the applicants and raising their awareness of intellectual property rights. Hence, we can disseminate this culture to the younger generations, so as to engage the largest possible segment of our community in addressing piracy, counterfeiting and commercial fraud.

“Dubai Customs’ IP Award has recently gained momentum due to our leadership’s initiatives towards stimulating innovation, namely marking 2015 as the Year of Innovation, per the directives of UAE President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the launch of the National Innovation Strategy by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai,” Mubarak added.

The Award is becoming more popular year after year. It brought together teams of 584 students from 43 schools and universities in the last four cycles from 2012 to 2015.