Russian Government Designs New Strategy In Field Of IP 13/07/2015 by Eugene Gerden for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)The Russian government is designing a new strategy in the field of intellectual property, which should strengthen the protection of IP rights in Russia and create conditions for the acceleration of the domestic research activities in the country, according to Dmitry Livanov of Russia’s Ministry of Science and Education. Ливанов ДмитрийDmitry Livanov The initiative for the design of a strategy was put forward for the first time in 2012 by the experts of the Russian Chamber of Commerce, however since that time implementation of the project was suspended. According to Livanov, the design of a new strategy is an acute need, as in recent years the rate of innovative and scientific activities in Russia has slowed down significantly. These statements are reflected by official statistics. According to data of the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent) (the Russian governmental agency in charge of intellectual property), at present imports of intellectual property to Russia are by 11 times higher than its exports. According to Vladimir Lopatin, head of the Russian National Scientific Research Institute of Intellectual Property, Russia has always had strong scientific potential. However, in recent years the positions of national science in the global market have significantly weakened. Still, at present Russia occupies one of the world’s first places in terms of the number of scientists. In addition, the country ranks the world’s 8th in terms of research spending, and is also a leader in terms of the number of patent applications and patents. However, despite this, the volume of sales of innovations and high technologies of Russian origin in recent years has significantly declined. According to Boris Leontiev, deputy head of the IP department at the Russian Chamber of Commerce, one of the main goals of the new strategy is to create of conditions for the acceleration of scientific and creative activities in Russia. According to Leontiev, at present Russia lags behind the US and China by eight times in terms of the number of patents, which is contrary to the Soviet era, when the country was the world’s second after Japan. To date, the Russian government has officially announced the establishment of an Interagency Working Group, a state group that will focus on the design of a draft of the strategy with the aim of its further submission for the consideration of the Russian Ministry of Science and Education. According to an official spokesman of Livanov, the new strategy will establish basic principles of the purchase of foreign intellectual property by the Russian business and industrial enterprises and should create conditions for the increase of Russian patent portfolio during the next several years. In addition, the new strategy involves the design of legal schemes for the protection of Russian IP in abroad. In the meantime, leading Russian scientists and experts in the field of IP have already welcomed the latest state plans. According to Anatoly Kozyrev, deputy chairman of the Scientific Council of Economic Intellectual Property Office of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), in recent years several laws in the field of intellectual property have been approved by the national Parliament, but the quality of the majority of them remains poor. “Despite the adoption of several laws in this sphere, experts usually do not have accurate information about the objects of IP, which are protected in Russia, since the country does not have open information bases about this, similar to Thomson Innovation and QUESTEL,” Kozyrev said. It is planned that the Russian Ministry of Science and Education will be responsible for implementation of the new strategy. According to Sergey Matveyev, deputy director of the Department of Science and Technology of the Russian Ministry of Education, successful implementation of the new strategy will allow to significantly increase the number of scientific findings and innovations, the rights on which can be purchased from their right holders. In the case of overseas protection, the Russian government plans to better protect the intellectual property rights of its domestic companies abroad and to facilitate ratification of international agreements in this sphere. According to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Russia has acceded to the Hague agreement on international registration of industrial designs, however its ratification has not yet been completed by the national Parliament (State Duma). Russia Sanctions Linked to Rise in Counterfeits According to Russian businessmen, sanctions imposed against Russia have already resulted in the increased production of counterfeit Russian products abroad. Anatoly Semenov, the Russian ombudsman on intellectual property, said that since the beginning of the current year the number of counterfeits has already increased, while the most complex situation is currently observed in the case of the Russian defence and industrial complex. According to Mikhail Kirillov-Ugryumov, scientific director of JSC Voenaudit, one of Russia’s leading providers of audit and consulting services to Russian defence enterprises, Russia currently has a shortage of mechanisms for legal protection of domestic military inventions. This resulted in the fact that the majority of domestic products are constantly illegally exported to abroad. According to him, an example of this is the well-known Russian Kalashnikov assault rifle, which is produced without a licence all over the world. The state plans include a new strategy involving the use of services of Western lawyers for the defence of the Russian intellectual property abroad. Sergei Zuikov, general director of the Zuikov and partners company, one of Russia’s largest patent companies, commented. “As part of the state plans is the creation of a system of accreditation of Western lawyers, who will defend Russian intellectual property abroad,” he said. “Not all Western lawyers – even those who take a multimillion-dollar honorariums are professional enough and are interested in protecting the interests of their customers from Russia. In this regard, there is a need to hire those specialists, who will protect Russian intellectual property for a reasonable price on a regular basis.” In addition, the government has not ruled out the possibility of the provision of interest-free loans to domestic companies, to help them to protect their intellectual property abroad. Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) Related Eugene Gerden may be reached at info@ip-watch.ch."Russian Government Designs New Strategy In Field Of IP" by Intellectual Property Watch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.