Moscow, June 16, 2006

LES-Russia held a seminar “Problems and practice of realization of IP license agreements in Russia” in Moscow on June 16, 2006. The seminar had a good attendance of 36 people from Russia and other countries of the former.

Opening the seminar, Dr. Natalia Karpova, President of LES-Russia, Professor of the Academy of National Economy under the Russian Government, noted the ever-growing role of IP in the rapidly developing world market economy on the example of a number of leading international companies. The great importance, which the leading world players pay to IP protection, intangible assets and legal aspects of technologies transfer, was also highlighted.

The first presentation “The issues of license agreements state registration” made by Vladimir Khoroshkeev, Patent Attorney, Director of IP firm “Reshersh”, concerned the problems of registration of license agreements in the Russian PTO, caused by both drafting up agreements and requirements of examiners towards their registration. The attendees took a keen interest in these proceedings.

As always, the participants looked forward to speeches of the judicial staff. Elena Moiseeva, Judge of the Russian Supreme Arbitration (Commercial) Court, in her presentation “The court and arbitration practice of litigation of license agreements” emphasized the trend towards a sharp increase in the number of IP hearings in arbitration (commercial) courts. Elena discussed many examples of litigation cases on trade marks, utility models, copyrights and license agreements as well.

In the speech Marina Karelina, Head of Department, Russian Academy of Justice, “Settling of disputes arising when fulfilling the terms of license agreements. Generalization of the Russian legal practice in the sphere of license trade”, a number of cases concerning different IP subject-matters was given.

In the course of discussion Elena Moiseeva and Marina Karelina useful recommendations were given on drawing up license agreements concerning intellectual property, basic approaches of Russian courts towards IP disputes were also highlighted.

In the presentation “Intel” practice on licensing software” Sergey Gaviadinov, Head of Legal department, “Intel” (Moscow), considered issues of adapting a company, whose capital asset is intellectual property, to the Russian market and legislation. Sergey answered great number of questions of the participants. It was very useful to find out that the difference between national IP legislations of the USA and the Russian Federation is not a serious obstacle for success of the company in the Russian market.

The topic of the speech made by Dr. Sergey Zhukov, Test-astronaut, Director General of “Technology Transfer Centre” (Moscow), - “The problems of licensing in the aerospace industry” spoke for itself. Moreover, the attendees were surprised to discover at what a high professional level these issues were solved and what a great importance was attached to IP in this specific sphere, which had been fully closed in Russia for licensing before.

Dr. Ludmila Fatkina, Professor of the Russian State Institute of Intellectual Property, spoke on “The peculiarities of accounting and taxation of license deals”. In view of the character and number of questions, there appeared to be a clear deficit and in a literal sense “a thirst” for information in this field.

It was most encouraging that all the speeches, equally, had aroused great interest of the audience. Taking into account the dynamics of law-enforcement practice, this subject would be probably considered again at one of the next LES Russia seminars.