IPTA Annual Conference

Dear Members

On behalf of the Council of IPTA, we have great pleasure in inviting you to the 2022 Annual Conference including the 103rd Annual General Meeting.

The 2022 Annual Conference will be held from Wednesday 6 April to Friday 8 April 2022 at Peppers Salt Resort & Spa in Kingscliff, NSW. Located just south of Tweed Heads in the Northern Rivers region of NSW, Kingscliff is a picturesque holiday coastal town with a gorgeous beach and estuary.

Although we know 2022 has started with the Omicron variant in the forefront of everyone’s mind, we remain optimistic and keen to make our annual conference this year one of our most successful, especially after the challenging last two years of COVID-19 related restrictions across Australia.

To this end, we have increased our popular trade mark half day sessions to a full day as a result of IPTA’s increased engagement with trade mark attorney members this year. We are also pleased to have a “super patents session” featuring a panel of speakers including Professor Ryan Abbott, author of “The Reasonable Robot: Artificial Intelligence and the Law”. Our Conference Committee has worked hard to put together an informative program covering a broad range of subjects which we believe will be of interest to you. An intent of the conference is to also engage attendees in high level, informative and open discussions about key issues facing the IP industry.

The conference will open on the Wednesday morning with a full day of trade mark sessions, followed by welcome drinks for YIPTA and Corporate members and a sit-down welcome dinner for all delegates at Peppers Lagoon Poolside. On the Thursday there will be a full day of sessions on a variety of subjects including ethics, people management plus sessions by IP Australia and YIPTA followed by a fun relaxed dinner at Osteria in Casuarina. The conference will conclude on Friday 8 April, with three breakfast sessions for YIPTA members, Corporate members and a Small Firm Practitioner’s breakfast, following with a full day of patent and design sessions. Our Gala dinner that evening will be held at Fins at Plantation House in Duranbah.

All educational business sessions are included in the full delegate registration fee, however we understand that your time is valuable and 3 days out of the office may sometimes not be feasible, so day rates are once again available to members who wish to attend part of the conference only.

IPTA would again like to encourage more of the newly registered attorneys to attend the Annual Conference and so this year we are pleased to announce special registration fees for YIPTA members.

In accordance with the Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Board (TTIPAB) guidelines, patent and trade marks attorneys attending the conference may claim one-hour CPE for each hour of business sessions they attend. This provides the opportunity to record approximately 15 hours of CPE as detailed in the program.

The deadline for conference registration is 7 March 2022. Online registration, conference program and a link to special accommodation rates are now available on the IPTA website.

We would like to reassure you that IPTA has a COVID-19 policy in place for the conference and is also offering last minute cancellation up to a day before the conference commences for a full refund of conference registration fees paid if you or anyone you are travelling with are unable to travel due to illness or unforeseen state restrictions in place.

Please help us make this conference a great success. We look forward to seeing you there.