The Russian Ministry of Telecommunications has been tasked with developing a set of measures aimed at ensuring international legal protection of intellectual property (IP) owned by Russian companies, Venture-News.ru reported earlier this week. The work was kick-started by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in late December 2012.
The planned measures are said to include government subsidies for patenting, co-funding of patenting between an IP owner and the state, and the development of a unified database of patents.
The proposed database calls for the co-funding of patenting between an IP owner and the state provided that the patented solution will be accessed by other Russian
companies.
According to Mark Shmulevich, the deputy minister of telecommunications, employees of Russian companies must be trained in “legal culture.” Russia still has fewer ‘patent trolls’ than the advanced Western countries, but the situation may change, Shmulevich warns.
“Today, companies incur substantial expenses litigating over patent conflicts,” Venture-News.ru cites Sergei Andreyev, ABBYY‘s president and CEO, as saying. He explains that costs may start at a $500,000 level if a quick indemnity settlement is reached and run up to as much as $10-12 million in a lengthy patent clash with sizable IT companies. “For young companies, which are just beginning to test the waters in their relevant global markets, such expenses might be a killer,” Andreyev concludes.
In a separate move, RVC, the national fund of funds for innovation, is also engaged in developing its own version of measures to help Russian companies protect their IP abroad. It is believed to be putting together a concept of a patent fund; but so far RVC has leaked no details regarding its effort.
