Innovation activity to receive impulse
Aconference entitled “Innovative Development and Economic Reforms: the Role of Intellectual Property and Technology Commercialization” devoted to the signing of a memorandum of cooperation between the Intellectual Property Agency and the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communication was held on February 11.
Addressing the event, Deputy Minister of Transport, Communications and High Technologies of Azerbaijan Elmir Valizade said that the creation of the Innovation House will start in Azerbaijan this year.
“We believe that the Innovation House will be useful to everyone, because a center for the transfer of knowledge will operate in the House,” he said. “The state will assist in the commercialization of ideas.”
He noted that the creation of the regulation of the Agency for Innovations is also being prepared. The start of the agency’s operation will contribute to the even greater development of innovation activity in Azerbaijan, he said.
Among other projects being implemented and planned for implementation, Valizade also noted the creation of a “state cloud”, a DATA center, the development of the internet, as well as the creation of new specialties in educational institutions.
“Azerbaijan is moving towards data economy,” he said. “As noted in one of the reports of the Davos Forum, about 65 percent of students will work in the future in specialties that don’t exist today. This is an indication of what steps we should take and which way we should follow. That is, it is necessary to introduce new specialties and technologies in the field of education.”
Speaking at the event Deputy Minister of Education Idris Isayev said that a large-scale project aimed at supporting and strengthening the education system is being prepared in Azerbaijan.
“This is an important project,” he added. “Leading experts have been involved in the development of the project.”
The project will last for two years, Isayev said.
He stressed that big changes were made to the Law on Education in 2018, aimed at improving education, as well as the quality of knowledge of students and pupils.
"The changes envisaging the use of modern information technologies in the education sector were also made," he said. "The merger of education, science and high technologies creates a single format, a single innovation platform that meets modern demands."
Addressing the conference, head of Intellectual Property Agency of Azerbaijan Kamran Imanov said that over the past year, the department of registration and register of industrial property of the Agency received about three thousand requests and applications.
Imanov said that 64 patents for invention were registered in the state register of industrial property objects.
“Fifty-four of them belong to local legal entities and ten to foreign ones,” he noted. “Sixteen patents were registered regarding utility models. Fifteen of them belong to national legal entities and one to foreign one. In addition, 24 patents of industrial facilities were registered during this period, and 11 of them belong to local legal entities, while 13 to foreign ones.”
In 2018, Azerbaijan’s Copyright Agency received 171 applications for registration of a patent for discoveries, 41 for utility models, 16 for international applications and 39 Eurasian applications for examination of intellectual property, he said.
“Following the examination, 20 notifications were sent regarding Eurasian applications, 14 for international applications, 145 notifications of a positive response, 53 requests for preliminary examination, 5 notifications on the suspension of the work regarding applications, 2 notifications of refusal of consideration and 14 notifications of various types,” he added. “Also 182 search operations on requests were implemented.”
It also became known that during the past year, 568 works of 333 authors were registered at the Agency on Intellectual Property of Azerbaijan, 574 certificates of registration of works were issued, including through the section "Electronic Services", 16 works were registered on the basis of 21 applications and 16 certificates of registration of works were issued. In addition, during the reporting year, 15 contracts were registered.
From the time of the official registration of works, from 1996 until January 1, 2019, 12122 works and objects of related rights were registered with the Agency for Intellectual Property, and 193 works of 97 authors were registered with the help of the “Electronic Services” section.
Elmir Valizade, speaking to journalists later, talked about implementation of e-signatures and stressed that activation of electronic signature certificates in new identity cards in Azerbaijan is expected in the near future.
As deputy minister noted this process requires the resolution of certain procedures that are currently being worked on.
“Certificates of an electronic signature, as it is known, are integrated into new ID cards. Today we are talking about their activation, and this issue is already being considered and will be resolved in the near future” Valizade said.
As for the cost of the certificate, the minister said that it has not yet been determined.