ISLAMABAD: World Intellectual Property Organization(WIPO) will hold Regional Conference of Heads of IP Offices in Islamabad, this was stated by Mr. Andrew Michael Ong, Director WIPO, while addressing inaugural session of three-day Regional Conference on Competency-based Trademark Examiner Training and Learning Management System. He elaborated that the competency-based learning is a relatively new concept and WIPO intended to facilitate the member states in the capacity building of their HR. He also thanked IPO-Pakistan for co-hosting the Conference. Ms.Shandana Gulzar Khan, Parliamentary Secretary for Commerce thanked WIPO for choosing Pakistan to host the international conference on such an important subject. She said that it was very pertinent to say that accurate examination of trademarks had very significant impact on the economic growth and elimination of future trade disputes amongst the business community. She further added that in the modern market economy, consumer purchase transactions were extremely important and the consumer entry in a retail outlet would always depend on the trademark repute and value associated to it. Earlier, Chairman IPO-Pakistan Mr. Mujeeb Ahmed Khan welcomed the participants of the conference and expressed the hope that they would be able to learn from the experiences of each other and thus improve the quality of the trade mark examination. He assured the support of IPO Pakistan to WIPO for organizing such events in future. The conference is being organized by WIPO in collaboration with IPO Pakistan in Serena Hotel Islamabad from December 5-7, 2018. The participants include WIPO Experts, International Consultants and representatives of Trade marks offices from Switzerland, France, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Magnolia, and Philippines. The purpose of this event is to share the experiences of trade mark examiners, especially the best practices and to devise a mechanism to improve examiners competency. Published in Daily Times, December 6th 2018.