Today, a press conference was held at the premises of the Ministry of Education, at which the Minister of Economy Valjon Saraqini, Minister of Education and Science Pance Kralev and Professor at the Faculty of Law Jadranka Dabović-Anastasovska promoted the PATENTI.MK project.
“The PATENT.MK project is a web portal that will promote the achievements of the scientific research work of researchers from higher education and scientific institutions,” informed Minister Kralev.
This project is being implemented in cooperation with the Patent Office, which will be obliged to regularly submit data to the Ministry of Education and Science for the maintenance of the portal.
“The system will enable the entry of the necessary information related to registered patents for innovative inventions in the Industrial Property Office of the Republic of Macedonia or in any other foreign institution for the registration of national or international patents,” said Kralev.
The project will ensure coordination of the economy and researchers and stimulation of innovative work. The portal will include content and tools that will ensure the establishment of an innovative base as well as public discussions and collection of proposals.
“It is necessary to create prerequisites and an appropriate climate for encouraging innovations and at the same time to make them available to the business sector. However, at the same time, it is very important to provide protection for innovators and their inventions and patents, in a word, their intellectual property, as well as industrial property consisting of technologies, new products and services, brands and more,” emphasized Minister Saraqini.
In the field of intellectual and industrial property protection, the Government of the Republic of Macedonia has made significant progress in the past few years.
“Like never before, we have developed new institutions, cooperated and coordinated with each other, improved legislation and regulations, and strengthened control mechanisms for respecting copyright and related rights, resolutely suppressing all forms of piracy and counterfeiting of intellectual and industrial property,” explained the Minister of Economy.
“The very project that we are promoting today with the Ministry of Education, in my opinion, should contribute to bringing together the supply of scientific knowledge by researchers at universities and the demand for innovation by the business sector, which consists of companies, but also small and medium-sized enterprises that cannot afford significant financial resources for research themselves,” said Saraqini in his address.
“I would like to finally encourage both parties, both innovators and investors, to use this portal as a medium through which they will achieve mutual benefit, companies will gain access to ideas and solutions that can make their products and services more competitive in the markets, scientists and researchers will receive real valorization of their work and knowledge”, emphasized the Minister of Economy.
Professor from the Faculty of Law Jadranka Dabović Anastasovska emphasized that special attention should be paid to how the business community can connect with universities, that is, how sophisticated laboratories from the faculties would be put into operation by small and medium-sized enterprises.
“The business community simply must understand that the value of their capital increases with intellectual property rights. If you pledge a trademark or an object in which an intellectual property right is incorporated, then its price will be much higher and you will be able to develop your business”, stated Dabović Anastasovska.