On 15 June 2022, the first day of the 25th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), OPORA RUSSIA organized the session entitled "IT Solutions for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Russian. Efficient. Competitive".

The Head of the Rospatent Yury Zubov shared with the session participants how the Intellectual Property (IP) Office assists in the development, support and protection of domestic IT solutions and products. Rospatent created a working group involving business representatives to develop a unified methodology for patenting IT solutions. The Office also developed, a unique digital platform, containing all collected patent information and allowing to work with this data through special services. IT developers independently check the viability of their ideas, i.e. assess the patentability of the solution, identify analog, assess the competitors and the relevant room to maneuver, find segments where the potential partners operate. Furthermore, Mr. Zubov said that Rospatent is one of the fastest operating Offices in the world: in 2020 the average time spent on the examination of applications for inventions was 4.07 months.

Since 2019, Rospatent has created 15 digital systems and all stages of interaction with the applicants have been digitalized. Addressing IT companies’ representatives, Yuri Zubov called on them to file applications in electronic format: e-filing implies a 30% fee reduction. Since the beginning of 2020, online registration of software (computer programs and databases) is successfully operating. If an applicant completes the electronic form correctly, uploads the program code into a special application field and attaches the abstract, then the software will be registered on the same day. "You don’t need to bring any more us disks or flash drives anymore", the Head of IP Office said.

"We note the positive trend in e-filings related to computer programs and databases: during 4 years their number increased more than 4 times. However, only 45% of IT developers use digital services. Many IT companies paradoxically prefer to work as they did before. Rospatent is ready to share the information and demonstrate how its services work", said Yury Zubov. He also, noted the overall growth in the number of applications for computer programs and databases. During the first 4 months of this year, Rospatent recorded more than a 22% increase compared to the same period of the previous year.

The Center for Advanced Technologies created by Rospatent will help to bring computer programs and other products to the market in an accelerated format. It will provide domestic developments with comprehensive legal protection to ensure their commercial success.

"Our goal to accelerate the implementation of scientific results in industrial production. We define areas of the perspective researches, register the comprehensive protection of the solution, form a strategy of protection on the domestic market and abroad, and produce the competitive solution", said Yuri Zubov.

The session was moderated by the following representatives of OPORA RUSSIA: Member of the Presidium Elena Volotovskaya and Executive Director Andrey Shubin, General Director of Business Soft LLC, Alexey Logantsov, President of RUSSOFT Valentin Makarov, General Director of the Russian Fund for the International Technologies Development, Alexander Pavlov, Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation Maxim Parshin and other stakeholders attended the sessions.