An online workshop “Improving the Provisions of the Civil Code of the Republic of Belarus on Intellectual Property” took place on April 23 of 2020. The workshop was organized by the Permanent Commission for Legislation and State Construction of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus.
The participants were the representatives of the Permanent Commission for Legislation and State Construction, the National Center of Intellectual Property, the National Centre of Legislation and Legal Research of the Republic of Belarus, Judges of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus, representatives of the Ministry of Economics, Minsk Regional Bar Association, Belarusian State University, Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno, Mogilev Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus and representatives of Polotsk State University.
Researchers, legislators and practitioners had an opportunity to discuss the new version of Section V “Intellectual Property” of the Civil Code proposed by the developers. The concept of the proposed project is based on the necessity to systematize the norms of existing legislation on intellectual property.
Victor Chaychits, Vice-Chairman of the Permanent Commission for Legislation and State Construction of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus, chairman of Belarus National Bar Association, opened the forum encouraging the audience to a fruitful dialogue on the topic.
Sergey Losev, PhD in Law, Associate Professor, Senior Researcher at the Department of Research in the Fields of Civil, Environmental and Social Law of the Legal Studies Institute of the National Centre of Legislation and Legal Research of the Republic of Belarus, provided a detailed and comprehensive review of the new version of Section V “Intellectual Property” of the Civil Code.
The following issues were under consideration:
- intellectual property objects system;
- general provisions on rights to intellectual property objects;
- general provisions on exclusive right;
- civil liability for infringement of the exclusive right;
- contracts used for disposition of the exclusive right;
- copyright law and related rights;
- patent law;
- means of identification;
- trade secrets protection (know-how).
Yury Golubev, Vice-Rector for Science of Polotsk State University, Oksana Golubeva, Dean at the Faculty of Information Technologies and Tatsiana Goncharova, Head of the Scientific Research Department took part in the workshop. Participation in the forum was also useful to Kristina Savitskaya and Tatsiana Semenova, senior lecturers at the Department of Civil Law and post-graduate students at Belarusian State University at the same time. In their presentations, gifted and perspective researchers used the results of their own Doctoral research covering the most relevant topics of intellectual property.
Vladimir Bogonenko, Head of the Department of Civil Law of Polotsk State University, PhD in Law, Associate Professor, provided a short overview and analysis of the proposed project.
It should be noted that the suggestions and comments made by the representatives of Polotsk State University were highly praised by the workshop participants. Besides, the specific suggestions on improving Section V “Intellectual Property” of the Civil Code will be used when creating its final version. Thus, the forum showed the high professional level of our scientists one more time. But the most important is that the forum clearly showed the relationship between science and practice.
Vladimir Bogonenko, Head of the Department of Civil Law
Photos: Polina Kosarevskaya