some type of "intellectual property" agreement?

The abstract alone might be enough to reveal the company's proprietary trade or technical secret. Of course, you can definitely make your arguement against that assessment.

However, the restriction imposed by the Conference is not sufficient to release you from your responsibilities. We all know that once the information is leaked to the 3rd party, it is out of your control no matter what it says in the rules set by the conference. That's why the Company can only tell its employees not to reveal it to anybody outside the company.