Views：59   Time：2019/7/17

Publication date: July 17, 2019 11:28

Grigory Ivliev, Head of Rospatent, told about the features of Valdai bells, Orenburg shawls and the Astrakhan roach

 

 

A number of indicators of national projects directly depends on the activity of Rospatent. So, in the national project "Science" it is indicated that Russia should rise in 2024 to the 5th place in the world in terms of the number of patent applications for inventions. Indicators of national projects on export and small business are indirectly related to patenting, registration of trademarks. In addition, the protection of regional brands directly depends on registration in Rospatent. Grigory Ivliev, the head of Rospatent, told in an interview to the portal “Future of Russia. National projects”, which is operated by the TASS news agency, about how the patent industry is developing in Russia and how its development will help in the implementation of national projects.

 

- Many interim indicators in national projects are related to the work of Rospatent, in particular, obtaining patents within the framework of national project “Science”. What can Rospatent do to help inventors and researchers? How can the grant of patents be accelerated, are there such plans?

 

- Practically any sphere that determines the future of Russia, any national project will be successful only if it is something new for the world, for a country, if there are new products, new systems, new relationships, services. And all of the above works in the format of intellectual property, in close relation to it.

If we take the "smart city" - it is implemented taking into account the intellectual property that must be attracted to realization of this project. We take unmanned machinery - and there, intellectual property is decisive. And in ecological projects, in health care, increase in life expectancy is all connected with it. Therefore, it is important to learn how to correctly use the tools of intellectual property, its advantages in all national projects.

But if we narrow the topic of our conversation, then you are right, we are actively participating in two national projects: “Digital Economy” and “Science”. These projects directly implement the requirements that are currently placed on work with intellectual property.

We have five positions in the government’s action plan for digital economy: creating platform solutions for searching and informing the entire inventive and entrepreneurial community in the field of intellectual property, introducing a 3D registry, introducing intelligent search, introducing online registration mechanisms when we proceed to electronic circulation.

 

- Do Russians change their attitude to trademark registration? For example, everybody knows that one should buy Kuban tomatoes or Lukhovitsy cucumbers, but nobody registers them as a trademark…

 

- Please, don`t confuse a trademark with an appellation of origin.

What is often called regional brands in the media is, in fact, in precise legal definitions, the appellation of origin.

That is, a downy shawl can be knitted by a skilled needlewoman from anywhere in the world, but those who do it in Orenburg have a number of features designated by the place of its production, local traditions and technologies. Therefore, the Orenburg downy shawl is unique.

 

- And are there many applications for registration of appellations of origin? What is the dynamics? List those brands that have already been registered.

   

- Here, the Federation Council helped us a lot and the active position of Valentina Matvienko, who called on senators to help with registration of brands of domestic regions, whose interests are represented by the senators in the upper house of the parliament.

So, at the beginning of last year, we registered only 169 appellations of origin. But thanks to the activity of the regions and their representatives in the Federation Council, only in 12 months of 2018, we received 100 applications for registration of appellations of origin and for provision of exclusive right to the appellations of origin.

36 certificates were granted for appellations of origin and for provision of an exclusive right to use appellations of origin. Among them, for example, are the ones like the Astrakhan roach, Kamchatka sockeye, Ryazan lollipop, Valdai bells, Uleyma cheese and many others.

In five months of this year, 34 applications have already been filed to Rospatent for registration of appellations of origin and for grant of an exclusive right to the appellation of origin, and we have granted 24 certificates for this period.

 

- You have prepared a draft law that provides for another type of protection of intellectual rights relating to local production, these are geographical indications. At what stage is it?

 

- We have prepared it, the project has successfully passed the first reading in the State Duma. Recently, a meeting of the State Duma Committee on State Building and Legislation, at which the law was recommended for adoption in the second reading, has been held.

Our joint work with the Federation Council and the State Duma is supported by Valentina Matvienko, Liliya Gumerova, Pavel Krasheninnikov.

But most importantly, the law has aroused great interest and wide support in the regions: local business and local administrations see it as a good resource for the development of the regional economy.

Therefore, for our part, we will make every effort so that the law is adopted as soon as possible.

 

- And what is the difference between the geographical indication and the appellation of origin?

 

- The appellation of origin assumes that the whole production cycle of a product takes place in a certain territory, that the key qualitative properties of a good or product are defined precisely by the fact that the entire production cycle is concentrated in this territory.

Geographical indication is a simpler registration requirement; it is an opportunity to transfer part of the production stages to the territory of other regions.

For example, it will be possible to collect tea or herbs for tea in Altai, and pack them in St. Petersburg.

 

- So it will be easier to register regional brands? What dynamics can you predict?

 

- Much easier. This is just one of the measures to create a comfortable environment for the protection of intellectual property rights, about which the President of Russia spoke. Others include shortening the time for consideration of applications, the development of digital services of Rospatent, new legislative initiatives, in which specialists of our office participate. Against this background, we look forward to a positive trend in the registration not only of regional brands, but also other objects of intellectual property. I will not give specific numbers, because even if these indicators are achieved, it will always seem to me that more could have been done.

 

- And if you go back to trademarks, does the number of people willing to register them grow?

 

- Yes, and a very active growth. If inventors and research centers are still beginning to understand the strategic importance of intangible assets and the legal protection of intellectual property, then business is already taking these issues much more seriously. Only in the second quarter of this year, the growth in applications for registration of trademarks was 22%. That is, in annual terms it will be tens of thousands of new applications. And this is to the base, which we already have. We protect more than 440 thousand trademarks registered under the national procedure and almost 210 thousand international trademarks registered under the Madrid System.

In total - more than 650 thousand existing trademarks. This is the tendency to use this resource in our country.

 

- And how much time does a trademark registration take nowadays?

 

- Now we have about six months for pendency of the application. It is in many ways optimal for our complicated system.

During these six months, all the information about intellectual property - and not only about trademarks, which exists in the world - should be analyzed, it should get into all the information systems that we use. These are information systems not only of our office, but also of other countries.

But if someone wants to register a trademark or get a patent faster, the Federal Institute of Industrial Property (FIPS) can do it. We specifically began to develop a service for accelerated examination of applications. Of course, this is done for a fee, but this is the practice of all the leading patent offices of the world, without exception.

 

- And in other countries, how much time does a trademark registration take?

 

- It depends on the approach taken. We have a so-called verification system. And in some other countries, the opposition system works.

Rospatent immediately makes a final decision, and in other countries where the opposition is adopted, the offices accept the application, publish it and wait for a certain period of time - 6-12 months, how third parties will react to it. Only after that the final decision is made. So, our verification time limits are the shortest in the world.

By the way, we discussed with the business community the possibility of changing the system from examination to opposition. However, its representatives have so far refused to change. In principle, this is clear: the verification system on the basis of examination gives a guaranteed result.

A certificate for a trademark, a patent is handed out, and that`s it.

 

- Concerning the grant of scientific patents, is the period the same - six months?

 

- Yes. But we are preparing for more patent applications than now. This is by the way, outlined for the purpose of the national project "Science".

We must be ready to examine them quickly so that the growth in the number of applications does not affect the speed and quality of their consideration. Therefore, we are improving our activities, we offer various algorithms for creating outsourcing centers by major scientific and educational organizations: they will conduct a preliminary search and preliminary examination, on the basis of which Rospatent will make a decision even faster. And better. If expert subdivisions, Rospatent and the largest scientific and educational organizations work together, the effect will be noticeable.

We cooperate with Peter the Great Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University. They have a supercomputer. We do not have such technological capabilities that they have. Therefore, such cooperation is an opportunity for a qualitative change in the issuance of scientific patents.

 

- By the way, about quality ... Foreign companies dispute with the Central Scientific Research Automobile and Automotive Engines Institute the right to use the Aurus trademark in the territory of the European Union. In their opinion, it is confusingly similar to the names of the brands owned by Lamborghini, Michelin and Toyota - Urus, Taurus and Auris. But do you expect that with the development of the export direction, the number of problems will increase? How to deal with it? And how are you helping Aurus now? And in your opinion, to what extent is Aurus an independent trademark?

   

- If you look at all these active trademarks, you may find that they are similar - Urus, Taurus and Auris. But if you look at the Aurus, it is much more different from all of them. Therefore, analyzing this difficult situation, we provided Aurus protection as a Russian trademark.

The Aurus trademark has a right to exist, especially since it has a clear semantic explanation: Au is gold, Rus states for Russia. We took these explanations into account when we examined the application.

Yes, its affinity with the above-mentioned marks was examined, investigated, but our experts quite accurately determined that such trademark could exist. By the way, this trademark is registered by patent offices of other countries. So, here we are united in our opinion regarding Aurus.

 

- And tell me, how is the work with foreign offices on connecting patent bases going? Because I remember, in previous interviews we discussed this subject.

 

- Yes. We are developing our software now, making a new database on the basis of a domestic software product.

And we will offer our database to all Eurasian countries, BRICS countries, other countries for shared use.

At present, we exchange information. We have already integrated, for example, the Japanese patent collection into our database. India provided us 3 million units of storage, a digital library of traditional knowledge for use. That is, we combine this information, and then it is submitted electronically to the world patent collection.

 

- According to the national project “Digital economy”, which we have already spoken about, by September 30, 2021 an open infrastructure for searching patent information should be created and introduced. What is this about? And will you cooperate with Yandex?

 

- Of course, we cooperate with Yandex. And the fact that they have released Yandex.Patents service is the fruit of our joint work. Now we are expanding this project to the entire world patent collection.

But we want to ensure that every entrepreneur can request information at any minute, can automatically get information about what is happening in the patent system. Neural networks, artificial intelligence enable you to give automated answers.

Therefore, a situation when an expert examines an application for several months and then says that “the conclusion is the following” will be a thing of the past.

Everyone will be able to receive answers online, in what state this or that situation is.

 

- When will this bright future come?

 

- Now we are developing a prototype. Next will be the trial operation, and in 2021 – the production operations, so you can come in and check.

 

- Agreed, I will check. And the last question is about the register of 3D images. It also sounds like a far-fetched.

 

- Yes. This is a project that we want to implement for already several years. It needs appropriate statutory regulation, so now the Government is discussing a draft of the new law, and then it will be sent to the State Duma. We hope they will receive it in the autumn.

At the same time, Rospatent is preparing the technology for this process. Peter the Great Polytechnic University - our partner - has created an algorithm for this procedure. The system is tested by 10 engineering centers. So, as soon as the law is passed, we will immediately resolve the issue in order to put this registration system into effect.

I think that transition from simple registration to registration of 3D images of all intellectual property objects will take several years. But this is truly a revolutionary decision. For example, the search itself will change, because the 3D search will not be based on subjective descriptions, but on the images themselves. What is in the materials of your application will be compared with what is already registered in the world. Differences and similarities will be marked in color, and an expert will receive an automated solution. And very quickly. And if the automatic answer is: “You know, your application does not pass”, then the applicant will be able to decide further whether to change the application, to file it again or proceed to a discussion with an expert.