Skolkovo and WIPO Agree to Jointly Promote Digital Agenda

The Skolkovo Foundation and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) have agreed to conduct joint work in helping the Institute of Intellectual Property adapt to working in the newly existing technological realities. The agreement was signed by the chairman of the board of the Skolkovo Foundation Ivor Drozdov and the director general of WIPO Francis Gurry.

The partners aim to find solutions to the technological challenges that the fourth industrial revolution has brought about. The main challenges the partners aim to solve, in collaboration with international experts, include the effects of using artificial intelligence for the protection of creative works during their production, defining the order of use of machine learning aims that have legally been implemented and digitized the results of intellectual activities, the potential uses of blockchain technology with the purpose of circulating the results of intellectual activities, and the ability of a rights holder to fully oversee their rights under conditions of full global digital access.

Photo: Sk.ru.

According to the 2019 International Property Rights Index (IPRI), Russia was ranked 64th globally and 13th regionally for intellectual property. This breaks down into the following:

• Perception of IP Protection - 81st (global); 14th (regional).

• Patent Protection - 45th (global); 10th (regional).

• Copyright Piracy - 62nd (global); 15th (regional).

Intellectual property is an important area in business development and innovation, and Skolkovo is one of several forces supporting intellectual property rights in Russia. This agreement with WIPO represents yet another move towards improving the country’s reputation in IP.

During a recent online meeting, the director general of WIPO Francis Gurry, whose tenure is drawing to a close, expressed thanks for the cooperation between Skolkovo and WIPO.

“I want to express our deep gratitude to you,” said Mr. Gurry. “Thank you for hosting our office in Russia and thank you for the many forms of cooperation that we have had; my visit there last year was fantastic. I must say that I will miss our great cooperation and it has always been fantastic for me to be able to come to Russia. It has always been a great pleasure. Thank you for this and this memorandum of understanding, which I have here and which I have signed. We’re delighted about this, it’s a great step forward and we are very proud to be associated with Skolkovo.”

Igor Drozdov, the chairman of the board of the Skolkovo Foundation, likewise expressed his thanks to Mr. Gurry and to WIPO.

“Thank you very much. It was a great pleasure to communicate and cooperate with you personally. I hope that in future we’ll have the chance to cooperate or communicate, and I believe that you will have the opportunity to come to Skolkovo once more to see our progress, and we could share our opinions and expertise. I am really proud that we are a part of the WIPO family, it is a great challenge for us and we are proud to contribute to WIPO activities. I believe we will be of use in the coming years and that we’ll achieve great results together.”