On November 21, 2006, in Moscow, at the offices of Gorodissky & Partners, the International Seminar on Current Problems of IP Commercialisation organised by LES Russia, was held. The Seminar was attended by 34 participants from Russia and other countries.

The LES Russia President — Dr. Natalia Karpova, Head of Foreign Economic Activities, Chair of Academy of National Economy opened the Seminar. In her speech she noted the important role of intellectual property in the rapidly developing world market-oriented economy. An insufficient understanding of the importance of intellectual property by Russian businesses was also pointed out. In this context, the Seminar highlighted the importance given by major foreign companies to the protection of intellectual property, control of intangible assets, and managing of income from the trade in licenses and innovative strategy in their commercial activities.

The first report titled The Role of Technology Transfer was delivered by Dr. Markus Jakobi of Isenbruck, Boesl, Hoerschler & Partners (Germany). Dr. Jakobi in the foreword to his report showed the causes of an increased significance of technology transfer with an example of such pharmaceutical companies as Pfizer, GlaxoSmith-Kline, Sanofi-Aventis, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, etc. Actually, recent years have demonstrated the steady trend to an essential increase of specific weight of the income gained from royalties within the total profit of the leading global pharmaceutical companies. The report further detailed various types of technology transfer agreements, possible measures that a company can take to improve efficiency of use of its intangible assets, pros and cons of licensing at different stages of development of a new product, disadvantages of exclusive licenses, various conditions of licensing payments, and many other extraordinarily interesting issues. Dr Jakobi concluded his report by outlining the importance of estimating a company's intangible assets for elaboration of its market strategy and for prospective evolution of a company, as well as for payment of remuneration for inventors. The audience responded to this report vividly, which was seen in active discussion of the report, and in many questions that were put to its author.

The report titled So, I have the IP — what should I do with it? delivered by Dr. Stephen Potter of Intellectual Ventures US, also was of no lesser interest. This report compellingly showed the commercial significance of intellectual property in today's business. The mere fact cited as example that the intangible assets amount to 80 percent and a greater portion in capitalisation of the leading global companies, tells a good deal. The report mostly dwelt on the matters of efficient and correct management of intellectual assets as a part of the intangible assets. The only difficulty is that a majority of Russian companies have not sufficiently large patent portfolios to be in a strong position to address efficient management thereof. Nonetheless, let us expect a better future. In any case, this experience must be beneficial, and if not presently, then somewhat later. In examining a strategy of managing the intellectual assets, the special attention in this report was given to the so called "spin-off" companies incorporated on the basis of a novel technology. Such companies, being an efficacious device for commercialisation of technology, generally allow an inventor (or a licensor-company) to stay at the helm of a project and earn a considerable profit. The report also provided a lot of useful information about the offensive and defensive strategies of licensing, policy at markets of big and minor companies, etc. Discussion of this report took quite a time.

The third report, delivered by Ms. Kaisa Fahlund of Hannes Snellman, Finland, was titled IP Commercialization—legal risks and possibilities. The beginning of the report dealt with choosing a strategy of commercialisation of a novel technology depending on the nature of a given technical development, a situation existing at the market, and a size of a company, etc. The report further described peculiarities of strategies for holding negotiations, necessity of entering a confidentiality agreement; efficiency of licensing as a means for commercialising the technology and as a means for establishing a balance of interests of both a licensor and licensee was described. Main interests intrinsic to a licensor and licensee were analysed using particular examples. The concluding part of this report gave a detailed analysis of the European anti-monopoly legislation with respect to working-out of licensing agreements, as applied to Russian companies. This report was also heard with great interest as indicated by numerous questions put to its author.

The concluding report delivered by Mr. Alexander Naumov, Deputy Director of Department of Scientific-Technical and Innovation Policy of Russian Ministry of Education and Science, titled Involvement of state R&D results into business, was bound for success — in light of the upcoming drafted changes in Russian legislation in the sphere of intellectual property. The report provided a detailed review of the legislative enactments recently adopted by Russian Government and directed to straightening-out the matters of disposal of the rights to results of scientific-technical activities, provision of registry of results of the civil-purpose R&D's, monitoring of results of the R&D's carried out at the expense of the federal budget, and stimulation of the innovative activities, etc.

The highest pitch of the report was, unconditionally, the analysis of the changes, now being drafted, in Russian Civil Code that pertain to the intellectual property, which changes, without doubt, will constitute a revolutionary moment in Russian law. This theme aroused a "hot" discussion that could not be drawn to a close easily.

The gratifying circumstance is that all the reports were equally of intense interest to the attendants. This Seminar can be surely grouped with the successful events organised by LES Russia.