A workshop on Intellectual Property Rights and Cyber Security was held on November 7 with the support of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, jointly organized by the US Embassy in Azerbaijan and Microsoft.

Chairman of Board of Intellectual Property Agency, Mr. Kamran Imanov made a speech at the event.

K. Imanov said that our country is ranked 25^th among 190 countries in Doing Business-2019 rankings, 9th for “starting business” and 2^nd for "protection of small investors' interests." Azerbaijan has been included in the top 20 reformer countries in its newly published Doing Business - 2020 report.

He noted that Azerbaijan is ranked 58^th out of 141 countries and is ahead of 8 of 12 indicators in the “Global Competitiveness Index 2019” report of the World Economic Forum. K. Imanov especially noted that such cardinal changes were also reflected in the protection of intellectual property, and Azerbaijan ranked 30^th out of 141 countries on "Intellectual Property Protection" indicator of the report.

The Chairman of the Agency noted that all this is an international value given to the ongoing reforms under the leadership of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mr. Ilham Aliyev. This is an indicator of the success of the economic strategy of the Head of State, on the one hand, and the result of the implementation of institutional reforms. Intellectual property field is clearly resonating with the innovative foundations of reforms, and as a result there are significant, institutional and functional changes. That is why the tasks facing the intellectual property system are determined by the country's innovation policy and serve the economic reforms in the country.

At an economic meeting with President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on October 15 the Head of State called the economic growth a positive event and set an important task for us. “Of course, we would like the increase to be even higher. I think there are enough opportunities and potentials to achieve this. We just have to use this potential to the maximum.”

Based on this instruction of the President, Mr. Imanov focused on the most efficient use of our resources in the field of innovation in the country and analyzed information on Azerbaijan included in “Global Innovation Index 2019”. He said that the figures in the report lead to two final results: “Firstly, our overall capabilities outweigh our overall results by 13 points. So, we must use our resources efficiently. Second is the “science and technology product” index that pushed us back - to 101^st place. This means that innovations are not commercialized and not marketed as innovative products.”

K. Imanov said that as a result of the President's special emphasis on the Microsoft Corporation, a massive license for government agencies and universities was launched as a result of urgent work with the relevant government agencies and businesses. He concluded, "There is great potential for the creation of an open and competitive market for numerous partners, startups and companies that create intellectual property in Azerbaijan and turn them into innovative products. This means that we should use our opportunities to increase economic power of our country and gain higher positions in international rankings with respect to intellectual property. "