Kamran Imanov, Chairman of the Board of the Intellectual Property Agency, was awarded the gold medal named after V. I. Blinnikov "For his contribution to invention and patent work" of the Eurasian Patent Organization.

On September 20-21, 2022, the 41st (twenty-ninth extraordinary) meeting of the Administrative Council of the Eurasian Patent Organization (EAPO) was held in a hybrid format in Moscow.

Officials of the intellectual property offices of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, as well as representatives of the World Intellectual Property Organization, attended in the event.

The delegation led by Chairman of the Board of the Intellectual Property Agency Kamran Imanov, the authorized representative of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the Administrative Council, participated in the meeting online.

At the meeting, changes to EAPO's 2022 budget and the Organization's 2023 budget, the procedure for electronic exchange of documents on applications for granting Eurasian patent were approved, changes were made to the Patent Guide and Administrative Guide of the Eurasian Patent Convention (APC) on Fees.

In addition, the establishment of a single Eurasian system of legal protection of utility models, trademarks and service marks, improvement of patent dispute review system, accession of the EAPO to Hague Agreement on the Registration of Industrial Designs to the Geneva Act (July 2, 1999), signing memorandums of cooperation between EAPO and a number of international organizations and states, development of cooperation in the field of information technologies between the European Patent Office and the national patent institutions of the APC participating states, awarding the gold medal of EAPO named after V. I. Blinnikov and other issues (more than 15 issues in total) were also discussed and appropriate decisions were made.

Chairman Kamran Imanov took an active part in the discussion of the creation of a single Eurasian system for the legal protection of utility models, trademarks and service marks, and the establishment of a Eurasian court in order to improve the patent dispute review system. Also, in connection with the creation of a single Eurasian system for the legal protection of trademarks and service marks, he asked to clarify the reasons why the trademark registration system of the Eurasian Economic Union has not yet started to operate. He proposed to take into account the information provided by EAPO regarding the project of establishing the legal protection system of Eurasian trademarks and to provide additional information about the research conducted in the national patent offices of the member states in order to harmonize the positions that will affect the system of legal protection of Eurasian trademarks.

The Administrative Council discussed the information provided by the EAPO on the project of establishing the Eurasian legal protection system of trademarks and gave tasks to consider the results of the work of the working group on the project of establishing this system, to prepare additional justifications for national patent offices regarding the expediency of creating the system, to explore key approaches and reporting mechanisms, as well as to find out the interest of the states that agreed on the establishment of a single Eurasian system in this field.

K. Imanov stated that EAPO does not have the authority to establish regional court jurisdiction in the field of industrial property. He proposed to develop this issue, taking into account the economic and legal means of justification, to deliver the data to the national patent offices for submission to the competent state bodies of the Contracting States.

The Administrative Council extensively discussed the issue related to the project of improving the Eurasian system for handling patent disputes, taking into account the information about the results of the work of the working group on the mentioned project and taking into account the proposals of the members of the Administrative Council, the decision to revise the issue of improving the Eurasian system for the resolution of patent disputes.

By the decision of the Administrative Council, Kamran Imanov, Chairman of the Board of the Intellectual Property Agency, was awarded the gold medal named after V. I. Blinnikov "For his contribution to invention and patent work".

Ata Annaniyazov, Head of the State Service for Intellectual Property of the Ministry of Finance and Economy of Turkmenistan, was elected the new Chairman of the Administrative Council.

It was agreed that the next meeting of the Administrative Council would be held in Minsk in the second half of 2023.