On December 9–10, 2025, an international conference on “Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence” was held in Baku by the Intellectual Property Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

A briefing for the media was organized at the beginning of the first day of the event.

Opening the international conference with an introductory speech, the Chairman of the Board of the Intellectual Property Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr. Kamran Imanov, stated that issues related to artificial intelligence are always in the spotlight in our country. He noted that the “Artificial Intelligence Strategy of the Republic of Azerbaijan for 2025–2028”, approved by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr. Ilham Aliyev, covers the economy, public administration, education, infrastructure, etc. The strategy includes tasks such as improving the regulatory and legal framework, adopting the “Law on Artificial Intelligence” that includes data ethics and liability issues, and establishing the Academy of Artificial Intelligence, and naturally brings changes to the laws in the field of intellectual property to the agenda.

Touching on the history of artificial intelligence, the head of the agency emphasized that the active development of Boolean algebra and the theory of computation gave a special impetus to the creation of artificial intelligence, noting that it was precisely thanks to the development of logic and mathematics that the foundations of the principles of describing intelligence through formal rules were laid.

K. Imanov touched upon the importance of artificial intelligence in the world around us, stating that artificial intelligence is not just a tool, not a tool, but an infrastructure integrated into the economy, culture and management. It was noted that artificial intelligence is one of the main driving forces of digital sovereignty. The principle of the future is based on the joint operation of humans and artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence also means the emergence of new forms of communication and media, generative artificial intelligence changes journalism, forms new content formats, etc. Finally, artificial intelligence is also social inclusion, providing people with wide access to automatic translation, speech and face recognition, as well as assistive technologies, creating assistive opportunities for people with limited opportunities and disabilities.

Noting that the history of artificial intelligence is not only an evolution from mythological ideas about mechanical intelligence to transformers and generative models, K. Imanov said that it is a history of its transformation into one of the main pillars of the global economy and a leading factor in socio-cultural transformation.

Then K. Imanov introduced the conference participants to some statistical data on patent protection in the world and Azerbaijan. Thus, in 2024, the number of applications for patent registration in the world increased by 4.9% compared to 2023 (3.7 million), including an increase of 13.2% in the field of information technologies, an increase of 2.2% (1.6 million) in industrial designs, and a decrease in trademarks stabilized. In Azerbaijan, in 2025 (until December), a 42% increase in the number of application documents for registration of industrial property objects (compared to 2024) was observed (378 documents versus 267). In particular, there was an increase of 41% in inventions, 9% in utility models, and 132% in industrial designs.

In the field of international patent acquisition, there is a 33% increase in the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system, 66.7% in Eurasian patents, and 146% in Hague industrial designs. According to the “Global Innovation Index – 2025” report, the patent system is listed as one of Azerbaijan’s strengths (53-57th places), and our country is in 38th place in terms of utility models.

The head of the Agency emphasized that all these increases are the fruits of Mr. President Ilham Aliyev's innovative institutional changes and are the results of the Patent, Trademark Open Target digital system operating at the Agency, the Open Registry, the Call Center and numerous meetings with potential inventors, methodological documents. This is also the result of the work of forming an intellectual property culture, raising awareness and conducting training as a result of the activities of the intellectual property departments at Baku State University and the Azerbaijan University of Architecture and Construction and their branches at the Agency.

K. Imanov noted with satisfaction that a survey was conducted among 15 country offices selected by WIPO from among 204 intellectual property offices in the world regarding the structure and activities of the Intellectual Property Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and its results were reflected in the book published by WIPO in 2025 under the title “Leaders Looking to the Future”. In addition, the Agency’s extensive article “Formation and Activities of a Modern Intellectual Property Office” was published in the prestigious journal “Intellectual Property: Industrial Property”. In November of this year, Azerbaijan’s intellectual property policy was cited as an example at the Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation, and in the report of the President of the Eurasian Patent Office, Mr. Grigory Ivliyev, it was recommended to benefit from Azerbaijan’s experience in Russia.

Speaking at the opening of the conference, Director of the Intellectual Property and Advanced Technologies Department of WIPO, Ms. Ulrike Till, noted that the artificial intelligence ecosystem in Azerbaijan is not a goal, but a reality, and said that artificial intelligence has entered daily activities in Azerbaijan. President of the Eurasian Patent Office Grigory Ivliyev noted that many projects in the field of intellectual property have been implemented with Azerbaijan and highly appreciated the activities of the Intellectual Property Agency. Speaking at the event, Deputy Minister of Science and Education Hasan Hasanli, Deputy Minister of Digital Development and Transport Samir Mammadov, Deputy Minister of Culture Murad Huseynov, Deputy Chairman of State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Salmanov, Head of the Digital Management Department of the Ministry of Economy Anar Narimanov and others emphasized the importance of the conference and expressed their hope that the discussions to be held will be beneficial.

It should be noted that the international conference was attended by more than 20 foreign guests, including representatives of the Japanese Patent Office, the French Patent and Trademark Office, the Ministry of Intellectual Property of the Republic of Korea, as well as officials of our country, representatives of state and public organizations, employees of higher education institutions and other interested persons.

At the international conference, Mr. Kamran Imanov, Chairman of the Board of the Intellectual Property Agency, delivered a comprehensive report on the topic "The use of artificial intelligence in intellectual property: from mathematical roots to practical and philosophical-legal aspects". The report touched upon the issues of knowledge circulation from the perspective of intellectual property, the role of knowledge as a "raw material" and a product of intellectual activity, the content and scope of the concept of the result of intellectual activity, the comparison of the result of intellectual activity in philosophical, legal and socio-economic perspectives, the mutual influence and differences of "knowledge" and "information", the subjectification of information and the objectification of knowledge, the correlation of these concepts and the difference and mutual feedback between them, and the circulation of knowledge through information were analyzed theoretically.

K. Imanov, having broadly opened the problem of using artificial intelligence in the field of information systems, spoke about the perspective of the system-cybernetic approach to artificial intelligence, and brought his ideas on Boolean algebra and implication operations, fuzziness and approximate judgments, stages of fuzzy logical inference, neural network, biological and artificial neurons, fuzzy neuron and fuzzy neural network to the attention of the event participants. The report analyzed the interaction of artificial intelligence and intellectual property, philosophical and legal issues related to artificial intelligence, analyzed practical issues for regulating the use of artificial intelligence for work with protected works, and protected intellectual property rights to objects created through artificial intelligence, and noted the expected prospects in this area.

The two-day international event also included presentations by foreign experts on the topics of "Overview: Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property Policy", "Patenting of Inventions Related to Artificial Intelligence (Intellectual Property Objects Created by and through Artificial Intelligence)", "Application of Artificial Intelligence as a Tool in the Patent System: Using Artificial Intelligence in Expertise and Management Processes", "Intellectual Property Policy on Artificial Intelligence: Issues of Patent Authorship (Inventiveness) and Ownership", and a roundtable discussion on the topic of "Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property Objects" was organized.