On November 26, 2002 the LES Russia - AIPPI Russia first Joint Seminar "Modern Approaches to IP Rights Enforcement and Licensing in Russia" took place successfully in Moscow.

The Seminar was attended by 47 members of LES and AIPPI from different countries - Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Kyrgyzstan.

The opening address at the Seminar was delivered by Mrs. Natalia Karpova, President of LES Russia, and Mr. Vladimir Kuryshev, President of AIPPI Russia. The Presidents highlighted the importance of the first joint Seminar that allowed to attract new participants, discuss the intellectual property issues in diverse aspects, establish new business contacts and render the relationships between these two Associations closer.

The morning session started with the report "Practice of Enforcement in Cases of Infringement of IP Rights" of Mr. Andrey Starostin, Sector Deputy Head of Criminal Police Service at Ministry of the Internal Affairs.

A special consideration was given to the facts of a growth of number of the criminal cases relating not only to copyright infringements but to trade mark infringements as well. The fact that presently there are practically no criminal cases for to infringement of the patent (utility models) rights, was attributed by the speaker to insufficient juridical literacy of the persons who apply to the Ministry. In particular, numerous applications to the Ministry concerning facts of infringement of patent rights actually related to the non-maintained patents. The report generated a lively interest among the attendees.

The presentation "Proceedings in the IP Rights at Common Law Courts" delivered by Mr. Viaheslav Gorshkov, Judge and Deputy Chairman of Moscow City Court, was as interesting as ever.

The speaker dwelt on the novel developments in the enforcement practice in Russia in that field. The following aspects were of a special audience's interest: increasing possibilities of a preliminary injunction measures, minutes of certain suits relating, e.g. to the use of patented avionics in aircrafts being the subject of leasing; legal protection of the patent accompanying drawings as the copyright law subject; prohibition to patent the employee's inventions, etc.

Further, of a particular interest seemed the report's information as to the courts' attitude to the matters of imposing a burden of proof on a defendant in infringement litigation, checking up final refusals of the Russian PTO on patent applications as well as decisions thereof of invalidation of the patents not only in the formal terms, but essentially as well; and to the matter of imposing the burden of proof of non-compliance of an invention with the patentability criteria on the Russian PTO, etc.

In the afternoon, issues of commercialization of intellectual property, technology transfer and licensing were examined. Mr. Alexey Sobolev, Head of Legal Department, "Innovatsionnoye Agentstvo", delivered the speech "Methods of Actualizing the IP subject matters at R&D Companies for Formation of Innovative Area", which dealt with determining and commercialization of intellectual property in Krasnodar region (South of Russia). A particular technique developed by Mr. Sobolev's company allows both a developer and technology transfer consultant to determine an invention subject and assess, to a sufficiently exact extent, the innovative efficiency of an invention basing on a minimal number of basic parameters. Unfortunately, efficiency of activities of that company in Krasnodar region is not quite high due to lack of investements in innovations and inertia of the R&D organizations.

The presentation "Systemic Arrangement of Innovative Activities" delivered by Mr. Vladimir Pervushin, Director General of "Technoconsult", became a great success. The Company developed a streamlined matrix-based system for commercialization of intellectual property. The Company fulfils orders of both foreign and Russian customers who request to develop or seek required technologies, and also commercializes the Russian inventions and other intellectual property subject matters (http://www.technoconsult.ru).

The Seminar's success showed the feasibility and usefulness of holding such events in Russia that attract a large audience of attendee whose specialty is legal protection of intellectual property and its licensing. LES Russia hopes to develop a fruitful collaboration with AIPPI Russian National Group in future.

Sergey Dorofeev
Secretary of LES Russia