Government launches intellectual property e-service

A new online intellectual property (IP) filing service is making it easier for Georgian and foreign entrepreneurs to register their creations online and avoid someone stealing their intellectual property.

Georgia’s Intellectual Property Centre, Sakpatenti, through a close partnership with the USAID-funded project Economic Prosperity Initiative developed an IP web filing system that pledged transparency, easy access from abroad and a cost-effective, time-saving procedure for applicants.

Through the new service, applying to register a design, trademark, geographical indications, copyright, or obtaining a patent fwill become easier, a Sakpatenti company official said.

Sakpatenti is a Governmental body that determines the policy in the field of intellectual property. The company said the electronic filing system was "a convenient online scheme” where any application around the world can be edited in a single window just logging into the system.

"Our web filing service offers a step-by-step process that takes you through the filing of a number of patent forms and documents as well as registering trademarks and other intellectual property subject matters,” said Sakpatenti director general Irakli Ghvaladze during a media site visit at its headquarters on June 5.

Ghvaladze believed the e-filling system, based on modern technical means and software, would make it easier for local organisations and international businesses to apply for trademarks, patents, designs and other filings.

Andri Razmadze, project coordinator of the electronic filing system Sakpatenti, believed the system offered people the incentive to register their IP and stop others from copying, manufacturing, selling, and importing their invention without permission.

"Any applicant has the ability to access the intellectual property databases, which allow them to sell all their intellectual property rights, license them to someone else but retain all the IP rights,” Razmadze said.

"It also gives the opportunity to discuss the invention with others in order to set up a business based around the invention,” he added.

As of May 2014, 17,053 trademarks, 305 design and 40 new varieties/breeds were registered and 1,639 inventions had been obtained in Georgia since Sakpatenti established.