IP Takes Spotlight in Race for WTO Entry

The Moscow Times, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2001. Page 5

By Lyuba Pronina
Staff Writer

Protection of intellectual property issues will take center stage in parliament this spring as Russia rushes to come up with its stance on conditions for entry into the World Trade Organization, the government said Tuesday.

A working group of WTO member nations will meet with Russian officials in Geneva for a fresh round of talks March 1-2, at which an agenda for the year will be drawn up, Russia's chief WTO negotiator Maxim Medvedkov told a conference of business leaders and diplomats.

Medvedkov, who is also a deputy economic development and trade minister, said the working group will then begin to hammer out the conditions for entry in May.

"The government plans to identify what its conditions are for joining WTO by the end of July," he said.

Medvedkov said the government is also pushing to introduce bills in the State Duma that will bring legislation in line with WTO requirements. Also, a special council overseeing trade and investment legislation was set up recently under the auspices of the Duma's economic policy committee.

"Work began on Feb. 1 to check all related laws for compatibility with WTO norms," Medvedkov said. "We are working on seven to eight laws and also on a separate package of laws on intellectual property."

Officials from Rospatent, the state agency in charge of intellectual property, said they have put together legislation for the Duma that would meet the WTO pact on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS.

The bills, which have been reviewed by U.S. and EU officials, will be sent to the Duma within a month, Rospatent head Alexander Korchagin said.

The cost of intellectual property violations in Russia is estimated at over $1 billion a year, astaggering sum that Russian and foreign companies alike have long been lobbying to claim.

Korchagin assured conference participants Tuesday that they were not the only ones interested in the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

"The Russian government is the party most interested in sharply curbing the level of piracy," he said. "Revenues to the budget will soar if we manage to do so."

Korchagin said Rospatent hopes lawmakers will amend five laws that include patents, trademarks and computer software in the spring, bills that would update laws passed in 1992.

If passed, by next year Russia should have the same IP protections afforded to European Union countries, he said.

A number of businessmen at the conference expressed concern that the laws may not be enforced once they are passed, saying that weak law enforcement made it pointless to file lawsuits.

"The judicial process here tends to be far outside the norms, competence and practices of legal proceedings in many other countries. … Owners of IP often fail to utilize legal protection," said Peter Necarsulmer, president of the Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights lobbying group, which co-sponsored the conference.

'"The present Criminal Code is inadequate and outdated in terms of legal provisions for intellectual property protection," added Yevgeny Arievich, a partner at Baker & McKenzie. "On the basis of current legislation, it is difficult to make law enforcement authorities do anything. A number of our clients have tried, but to no effect."

Korchagin countered that the best recourse would still be to sue violators and file complaints with the Interior Ministry.

"Such lawsuits are so few that one can't draw negative conclusions from what has happened," he said. "The Interior Ministry is ready to consider such appeals and open criminal proceedings."

But some participants were not easily soothed.

"What Korchagin said does not correspond to reality," said an executive of one multinational company at the meeting who asked not to be named. "You apply to the Interior Ministry, but they refuse to take up the case. The government could have done more."