Agency
Intellectual Property Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan has been established according to the Order of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan No 5 dated to April 20, 2018 “on Measures to improve management in the field of consumption market control, standardization, metrology and protection of intellectual property rights” through reorganization of Copyright Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Patent and Trademark Center in the form of merger.
As a continuation of structural reforms, the “Charter of the Intellectual Property Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan” was approved by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan No. 222 dated July 30, 2018 “On ensuring the activities of the Intellectual Property Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan”. The Center for Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights under Copyright Agency and the Republican Scientific and Technical Library under the abolished State Committee for Standardization, Metrology and Patents have been transferred under Intellectual Property Agency. Patent and Trademark Examination Center has been established under Agency.
According to its Charter Agency is the legal entity of public law providing development of the field of copyrights, related rights, rights to compilations of data and topographies of integrated circuits, rights to inventions, utility models, industrial designs, trademarks and geographical indications, rights to Azerbaijani folklore expressions (traditional cultural expressions), traditional knowledge and other expressions of intangible cultural heritage (hereinafter – intellectual property rights) implementing single regulation and control and coordinating activity in this field.
Agency shall be engaged in activity that has state and public importance. For the provision of services related to the registration of the relevant legal facts provided by the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan "on State duty" (for legal actions) employees of Agency are equated to civil servants
The goal of the Agency's activity is to ensure the effective functioning, sustainable development and transparency of intellectual property rights field in the Republic of Azerbaijan, to protect the rights of intellectual property rights holders, to enhance the knowledge and impact on information society in the indicated field and to take the lead principles and standards in the field of intellectual property rights when performing activities determined in this Charter.
Directions of Agency’s activity are following::
- to participate in the formation of a single state policy in the field of intellectual property rights and to ensure the implementation of this policy;
- to implement the regulation in the field of intellectual property rights and to exercise control over compliance with the current legislation;
- to ensure legal protection of intellectual property rights, to prevent their misappropriation and infringements regarding their use and to take relevant measures regarding this;
- to ensure realization of intellectual property rights;
- to carry out examination of the claimed documents in accordance with legislation and state registration of intellectual property objects, to submit protection documents and publish relevant information, to establish national information system on right holders and users and to take relevant measures for regularly improvement of that system;
- to carry out regulation and control in the field of collective management of rights to keep record (accreditation) of state registered collective management organizations to ensure attestation and registration of patent attorneys;
- to organize the protection and management of intellectual property rights in digital networks with the aim of supporting the development of information society, including digital information technology and e-commerce;
- to take measures for improving role of intellectual property in modern economy, for improving investment environment in economy based to copyright (creative economy), for commercialization of intellectual activity results and for determination of share of creative economy in country’s GDP, also for creation of infrastructure of technology transfer, innovation support and commercialization;
- to take measures related to the formation of the intellectual property policy in higher education and research institutions, the support of commercialization of intellectual activity results and innovative technologies, as well as the creation of infrastructure for commercialization and transfer of technologies;
- to ensure development of intellectual property rights field, also to realize international exchange and cooperation in this field;;
- to participate in forming of intellectual property rights culture.
In accordance with the above-mentioned areas of activity defined by the Charter, the Agency carries out about 70 duties and exercises more than 15 rights.