OREANDA-NEWS. January 16, 2007. Intellect is probably the most important factor in the world's progress. Ideas and knowledge are becoming an increasingly important part of contemporary global economy and culture, reported the Official website http://www.investuzbekistan.uz.

Protection of the intellectual property rights has grown in importance over the past several decades and is closely associated with the economic and political processes taking place both inside any particular country, and internationally. Clear and valid legislation and procedures regulating the rights for intellectual property serve as an additional impulse for further and more intensive development of economic relations between the companies, people and nations in the age of globalization and economic integration.

At this time administrative regulation of the economic processes in the Republic of Uzbekistan has changed. It aims at protection of entrepreneurship and industry. In light of this, the protection of intellectual property rights gains priority importance.

Decent legislation on the protection of intellectual property rights (LIPR) and its practical implementation raise the trust of investors, stimulate the follow of investments in the domestic market and create a favourable environment for the development of trade and investment relations at the national and international scale. But the main argument in favour of the protection of intellectual property is motivation of the creative and innovative activity.

Throughout the sixteen years of Uzbekistan's independence the Government of the country has pursued a target policy on LIPR based on international standards. A whole range of measures was implemented to improve the situation in this field, among them several laws and amendments to the Civil Code of Uzbekistan, ratification of a number of international conventions and agreements on LIPR, as well as creation of new state agencies performing the LIPR related functions.

Uzbekistan's ratification of a number of international agreements allowed it to strengthen its international reputation, and take further steps towards improvement of the existing system of legal protection of creations, industrial samples, trademarks, selection achievements, etc.

The adoption of the corresponding legislative acts in turn made it possible to include the provisions of the international acts into national legislation.

The adoption of the legislative acts became an additional stimulus towards further development of scientific-technological and innovative activity, efficient use of scientific-technological potential and reduction of the costs incurred by corporate and private entities for legal production of the discoveries, useful models, industrial samples, selection achievements, registration of trademarks, service marks, names of the places of origin, software programmes and databases, topologies of integral micro-schemes, and was aimed at creation of favourable conditions for the development of small business, stimulation of economic development and reduction of the costs associated with the legal protection of intellectual property.

Nevertheless, the legislation regulation this area still needs harmonization, and the staff of courts and regulatory agencies dealing with the issues of copyright and intellectual rights protection should have the necessary knowledge on the subject.

The ratification of a large number of regulatory documents at once and the issues requiring clarification related to this field are still a barrier on the way to the economic development of entrepreneurial and industrial sectors.

In light of this, the issue of development, synchronization and explanation of the laws on copyright protection is on today's agenda. These actions are required in order to assist the success of local and international industry present in Uzbekistan.

It is worth mentioning that the international community in its turn also contributes to the solution of the problem by support the positive changes that have already taken place in Uzbekistan. One of the examples of such support and cooperation is the off-budget OSCE Project Coordinator's Project on the "Support in the field of development of the right for intellectual property in Uzbekistan." The funds for the implementation of the two phases of the Project were provided by the Government of the United States. The aim of the project is to review the issues on the protection of the copyright in the Republic of Uzbekistan.

The project considers the following key issues: synchronization and simplification of the legislation; organizational structure of the copyright regulative system; study of the experience of parties involved in the process of copyright protection: regulative agencies, courts, agencies regulating competition, entrepreneurs.

The aim of the project is also to contribute to the process of economic development, create democratic structures and assist the development of legislation, which would simplify further integration of the country into the international community.

This project fully agrees with the main aims and activity of the OSCE. The case is that as a part of its complex approach to security, OSCE considers the economic and ecological issues recognizing that cooperation in these fields helps the maintenance of peace, prosperity and stability.

According to the 1990 Bonne Convention on Economic Development and the OSCE Strategic Paper on Economic and Ecological Measurement, the OSCE provides assistance to the member-states in the process of economic transition and fight against economic threats to security. With this aim in mind the office coordinator provides support and takes action intended to:

- assist regional and global economic integration, trade and access to markets;
- simplify the economic cooperation in the areas lying near the country borders;
- develop the business environment that attracts investments and assists the economic growth;
- support the development of small and medium-sized business;
- provide opportunities to the vulnerable groups and speed up the economic growth in the regions with experiencing slower development;
- develop the human capital and entrepreneurial initiative in the countries with transition economies.

A partner in the implementation of the Project on the Uzbek side is the Centre for the Improvement of Anti-Monopoly Policy under the State Demonopolisation Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Also, several consultants/specialists of the concerned parties whose participation it is hard to overestimate are involved in the implementation of the project. In particular, the representatives of the Cabinet of Ministers, State Patent agencies, State Demonopolisation Committee, the Ministry of Justice, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Higher Economic Court, the Uzbek Republican Agency for Copyright are enclosing their professional contributions for the successful implementation of the project.

The project was launched in April 2007. Its completion is scheduled for May 2008. According to the tasks set, two main phases of the project – the phase of data collection and the phase of their analysis have already been completed.

In particular, the existing legislation was analysed with the aim of determining the legal framework for the issues to be reviewed. Moreover, focus groups and field studies have been carried out. Focus group discussions covered the issues representing particular importance to the agencies regulating this field and entrepreneurs. This has helped determine and classify existing and potential problems in the system of copyright protection. After each of the meetings, every member of the focus group filled out a questionnaire developed by the staff and consultants of the project.

Among the respondents were entities working in the following sectors of the economy and regions of the country: science, scientific service, education, culture, healthcare, industry, construction, transportation and communication, services, trade and agriculture.

The idea behind the organization of focus groups and the social survey is the identification of the existing and potential problems in the system of copyright protection through the questionnaire filled out by the participants. The survey and the focus groups were conducted in different parts of the country. The total number of the participants was – 1905, of whom 57% are the members of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, and 80% do not have the rights for any type of intellectual property.

The results of the survey revealed the following key facts:

- only 20% of the respondents are the owners of the copyrights for certain type of intellectual property. Of them 47% received a protection document in order to protect the object against unfair competition, 30% - in order to receive a certificate at UzStandard and 25% - in order to receive tax and other benefits;

- 89,4% of the respondents said that measures aimed at raising the awareness about the intellectual property objects among small and medium-sized enterprise represented an important trend in the solution of the LIPR issues;

- 87,5% of the respondents said coordination and cooperation between different agencies and state institutions in protection of intellectual property rights was important to the solution of the problems existing in this sphere;

- 59% think there are problems related to the inactiveness of the law enforcement agencies in the problems concerning the protection of intellectual property rights;

- 88,9% agreed that particularly important to the solution of the LIPR problems was the quality of the legislation on trademarks, 86,7% - thought it was legislation on creations, discoveries, useful models and industrial samples, 76,6% - legislation on copyright protection of computer software and databases, 67,5% - legislation on copyright protection of the topologies of integral micro-schemes, 72,2% - legislation on selection achievements. On average, slightly over 11% of the respondents found it difficult to answer this question.

Also, the results of the informational block of the survey indicate that the majority of the respondents are not very competent in the issues of intellectual property, do not have the necessary knowledge on the contracts, claims and agencies regulating the issues related to intellectual property.

The next stage of the Project was the data analysis phase, which included the study of local (laws and bylaw acts on LIPR and the results of the survey and focus groups) and world best practices in regulation of the copyright protection system, the determination of the key related issues and problems.

At this stage the project task group studied the legislations regulating the issues of intellectual property of five countries – Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Japan, South Korea and the United States. Comparative analysis of the legislations of Uzbekistan and other countries was carried out. As a result some discrepancies were identified on the main issues and aspects of the policy pursued in this field. Recommendations were developed individually each object of intellectual property:

creations, useful models, industrial samples, trademarks and service marks, topologies of intellectual micro-schemes, selection achievements, databases and software, copyright and related rights. The reports are basically the reports on the results of the research carried out by local experts, including the analytical part, comparative analysis, general trends in the area of study, the results of surveys and focus groups, and recommendations on introduction of amendments to the legislation of Uzbekistan.

In 2008 the Project is to carry out two closing phases: the phase involving the publication of the results of the research among the interested parties and the closing phase on the development of the regulatory acts on introduction of changes to the existing legislation. At this time measures are being taken to organise seminars and conferences with the participation of international experts, representatives of state agencies and the private sector of Uzbekistan.