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The international conference “Software Àapplications as Intellectual Property Objects in the Republic of Belarus” was held in Minsk on September 26-27, 2007.
The conference was the first joint project by the Scientific and Technological Association "Infopark" and the State Institution "Administration of Hi Tech Park".
The Conference is held with the participation of the State Committee for Science and Technologies of the Republic of Belarus, the National Center of Intellectual Property of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Taxation of the Republic of Belarus.
The Conference was participated by international experts, heads and specialists of IT institutions, employees of the state bodies and institutions who deal with the issues of development and selling software applications, copyright protection and enforcement. The event aimed at defining and discussing the problems in this field, and it is to coordinate the efforts of all the parties concerned to improve the legal environment of the information technologies sector in Belarus.
During the first day of the Conference at the plenary session and the participants could hear the presentations by foreign experts from the USA, Holland and Switzerland, representatives of the State authorities’ bodies.
Dr Ralph Heinrich, Secretary of the UNECE Team of Specialists on Intellectual Property, reported that the volume of piracy in software sphere, according to the UN data, exceeds $10 bln. per year. He also noticed that more and more software used in the USA and Western Europe is developed in the Eastern Europe, in particular in the Republic of Belarus. On behalf of the UNECE Team of Specialists on Intellectual Property, Dr Ralph Heinrich expressed the readiness to participate in the development of all necessary recommendations concerning the issues of intellectual property protection.
Discussions in sections were held during the second day of the Conference. Thus, participants of the section “Legal issues of developing and using software” analyzed in detail the legal framework of the Republic of Belarus, regulating the issues of developing and selling software. The participants also considered the issues of protection of software as well as literary creative works by copyright means. Software application was considered as a specific copyright object. The participants of the Conference clearly defined the advantages of licensed software use, and analyzed the consequences of software use without the copyright holder’s permission, all the types of responsibilities for unfair intellectual property use, court practice on intellectual property issues.
The issues of software applications development and use were considered in the framework of law-enforcement. The participants showed a particular interest to the problem of defining types of contracts by which applications are developed and by which property rights and copyright for them are transferred: the theoretical basis of the relevant legal relationship was considered, experienced lawyers expressed their opinions on this issue, some recommendations on the formation of contract framework have been elaborated. The participants of the Conference were offered some innovative approaches as for the application of the patent law to protect software; the need was underlined to introduce changes in the present laws.
During the Conference the experts of Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry spoke about the possibility of depositing software applications, which presupposes issuing a certificate for a software application and nomination of its copyright owner.
Yuri Konovalov, the head of the Indirect Taxation Administration of the Ministry of Taxation of the Republic of Belarus delivered a report in the section “The issues of taxation in software development and use”. The title of the report was “Taxation issues of software development, use, copyright selling and purchasing”. The participants of the section also considered the issues of the software and data bases value assessment, price determination in concluding contracts for usage rights, peculiarities of accounting and taxation relations in the field of software.
The Programme Committee will elaborate the final document summarizing the results of the Conference including proposals to improve the system of intellectual property rights protection.
28.09.2007 |
