Translated material
Hold your head
Moscow authorities want to improve the system of intellectual property protection
The city authorities are confident that some ideas of city officials require not only implementation in the daily life of the city, but also intellectual protection . “Our developments need to be protected with patents and scientific and technical products introduced ,” said Yuri Roslyak, head of the city’s economic policy and development complex, at a meeting of the city government yesterday.In the absence of the main patent holder of the mayor's office, Yuri Luzhkov, whose knowledge, experience, and most importantly, ambitions, as we know, are enough to register both kulebyaks and methods of laying the Moscow Ring Road as new technologies, it was Mr. Roslyak who had to consider the draft resolution to improve work to protect and involve the city’s intellectual property into economic circulation.
Mr. Roslyak, apparently, is convinced that Moscow’s potential allows it to produce not only kulebyaks, and that many officials and employees of the capital can measure their intellect with the mayor. In his opinion, the time has come to create an institute for the implementation of scientific developments. “The ultimate goal of developing intellectual property is implementation, and here we must use our experience in supporting small businesses,” said the first deputy mayor.
Dmitry Rototaev, General Director of the Moscow Committee for Science and Technology, urged his colleagues to be more active in obtaining patents. According to him, a patent or ownership of a product of mental labor is undervalued by domestic developers today. “We once occupied third place in the world in terms of the number of registered patents, but now we have fallen back to tenth, behind Australia, Canada, China and even India,” Mr. Rototaev recalled, complaining that Moscow companies are in no hurry to register their own products. Although registering patents can increase the capitalization of an enterprise. Compared to Western companies, in whose capital up to 30-45% are so-called intangible assets, domestic enterprises have less than 1% of their intellectual property. Despite the fact that Moscow accounts for about 22% of all invention patents issued in the country and 24% of utility model certificates, in the legal field the work of Moscow inventors can be considered ineffective. “Eight years have passed since not a single trademark was sold, six years since not a single industrial design was sold,” noted Dmitry Rotataev.
The city authorities, according to him, in order not to miss the city’s share in the rights to each intellectual property object created at the expense of the Moscow budget, need to create mechanisms for decision-making and transfer of rights to the results of scientific and technical activities to business entities. In particular, develop a system of intellectual property appraisers, organize educational work, a system of grants for inventors, and regularly hold a competition for inventors in the capital. And in parallel, develop the citywide infrastructure of innovation activities necessary for the effective process of commercialization of intellectual property.
In particular, it is expected that starting from the new year, all technical assignments for carrying out research and development work will require mandatory patent research. In addition, during the first half of 2008, developers pledged to provide models for financing innovative developments, including from domestic and foreign investment venture funds, and attracting intellectual property as collateral for a loan.
According to the head of Rospatent, Boris Simonov, there will still be no motivation for inventors and design institutes due to the imperfection of the regulatory framework and the lack of professional managers. True, the Moscow authorities have expressed their readiness to take part in improving intellectual property legislation. “Moscow can gain a competitive advantage by supporting scientific developments,” said Mr. Roslyak. “We will definitely support the legislative initiatives voiced at today’s meeting; we need to stimulate the creation of a standard agreement in the field of patenting.”
In addition, the head of the complex of economic policy and city development stated the need for the speedy implementation of already registered products of intellectual work into practice. “Our developments need to be protected with patents and scientific and technical products introduced,” said Mr. Roslyak. - To do this, you can use the experience we gained in small businesses in creating venture funds. The venture fund regime will allow us to cover the risks that arise when introducing scientific technologies.”