Chairman of the Board of the Intellectual Property Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan Kamran Imanov received representatives of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) - Mr. Jakob Fexer, the collaborator of the Department of Economic Cooperation and Trade and political analyst Dmitri Plekhanov.

Welcoming the guests, K. Imanov emphasized social-economic reforms implemented in our country including institutional reforms aimed to development of intellectual property field and informed that Azerbaijan was among 10 most reforming countries in the World Bank's “Doing Business – 2019” report and according to the Report of World Economic Forum, our country is ranked 36^th on IP protection index. The Chairman also emphasized that the Head of State pays great attention to innovative development and from this point of view a special department has been established in the Administration of President to coordinate the country's innovative development.

Thanking for the reception, Y.Fexer informed about the research on innovation policy carried out in the Eastern Partnership countries by UNECE - Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. He said that the objective of this project, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), is to identify weak and strong sides in innovation, innovation policy, innovation and innovation processes and increase competitiveness in these countries. He also pointed out that research will be carried out based on survey questionnaires within the framework of the project and has been interested in the use of creative economy in Azerbaijan and the use of innovative policy tools.

K. Imanov emphasized the Agency's role in enhancing the role of intellectual property in the modern economy and improving the investment climate in the economybased on copyright (creative economy), commercialization of intellectual activity results and the determination of the share of the creative economy in the country's gross domestic product, as well as the creation of technology transfer, innovation support and commercialization infrastructure.

Chairman of the Agency emphasized that technology transfer and commercialization centers, including technology and innovation support centers, were launched in a number of universities and research institutes and informed that awareness-raising activities were carried out in this area. Noting that voluntary registration of copyrights in our country is underway, K. Imanov emphasized that this created additional opportunities in the process of enforcement of rights and as a presumption of authorship for the works registered in courts.

At the meeting, the sides exchanged views on patenting, conditions created for patent owners and other issues.