On December 12-13, 2019 students and professors carrying out research in intellectual property law visited the headquarters of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland.
A workshop “Current Issues of Intellectual Property Law” led by WIPO took place during the visit.
Representatives from Azerbaijan, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Belarus, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan took part in the seminar.
PSU was represented by students studying Jurisprudence at the Faculty of Law: Anastasiya Bobkova, Tatyana Akhremenko and Senior Lecturer of the Department of Civil Law Kristina Savitskaya.
The following topics were discussed during the first day of the workshop:
- Intellectual Property and Global Issues;
- Intellectual Property and Business;
- The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center;
- Copyright Law in Digital Era;
- International Patent Right (latest developments);
- International Trademark Law and Registered Designs Act (latest developments);
- Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge, Traditional Forms of Cultural Self-Expression and Access to Genetic Resources.
The WIPO specialists performed as speakers. The participants of the workshop had an opportunity to ask their questions and share their experience in the peculiarities of intellectual property law in their countries.
Mr. Mikhal Shvantner, Head of the Department for Transition and Developed Countries opened up the second day of the study visit.
Mr. Saidakhmad Azimov, Program Manager of the WIPO Department for Transition and Developed Countries, provided a review on intellectual property policy in universities.
At the workshop, the participants discussed intellectual property policy in the universities in participating countries and shared successful practices in developing local and national documents in this sphere.
As part of the ‘Street Law’ project, Law Faculty students held an interactive class “Copyright Law” for students of Novopolotsk secondary school No. 16 after the study visit to Switzerland.
Tatyana Akhremenko and Natalya Porfenova performed as trainers.
During the class, the students learned the term copyright law, who may be called an author of a work, which works are under copyright law protection and which are not. The participants discussed the issues of legal protection for fictional characters and issues of works created by animals. As an example, the participants considered the monkey selfie copyright dispute between the photographer David Slater and PETA. It was a series of disputes about the copyright status of photos made by Celebes crested macaque named Naruto using the Slater’s camera.
At the end of the class, the participants checked their knowledge using Kahoot!, an interactive game-based platform allowing to answer the questions on screen with the help of a smartphone. The participants demonstrated a high level of knowledge and interest in the topic.
We are going to hold the same classes in Polotsk and Novopolotsk schools next semester.
Tatyana Akhremenko: “The participation in the study visit gave us not only the basic knowledge in the sphere of intellectual property but also allowed to pay attention to the issues which are still not regulated by law.
This visit immersed me into the working atmosphere, gave an opportunity not only to ask interesting questions but most importantly to unite the efforts of the representatives from different countries to improve the intellectual property policy in universities.
To sum up, I’d like to point out that this visit gave me knowledge in the sphere of intellectual property, the information and the contacts useful for developing my academic work. Now we can integrate this knowledge into the work of our university!”
Anastasiya Bobkova: “It’s not the first time WIPO hosts the Republic of Belarus delegation. This visit makes a great impulse and motivation to make a breakthrough in the sphere of intellectual property.
The study visit programme was full of events. The participants had a unique opportunity to learn more about the essential issues in the sphere of intellectual property from the specialists of WIPO. The lectures were vivid, interactive and looked great.
On the last day of the visit, we discussed the intellectual property policy in universities. Each of the participating countries shared their experience in this area. We made our conclusions and are ready to work on IP-policy actively”.
Kristina Savitskaya, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Civil Law