Promoting and Protecting Intellectual Property in Ukraine (2014)

The time is right for the Ukraine to promote and protect intellectual property rights (IPR).

Strong IPRs benefit the economy, attract foreign direct investment, promote innovation, bolster R&D, and technology transfer, help firms monetize their inventions and grow, empower small- and medium-sized enterprises, and more generally benefit consumers and society.

Key legislative and policy recommendations

The value of fakes in Ukraine is estimated to be around USD 1.3 billion according to the Ukraine Alliance Against Counterfeiting and Piracy. Illicit goods proliferate the black market. According to other estimates the losses to counterfeit goods for Ukraine were close to USD 710 million while the combined losses of music, movie and software piracy added us to USD 720 million in 2008.

A problem of this magnitude requires action. BASCAP has put forward a set of specific legislative and policy recommendations to serve as a roadmap forward.

Summary of policy and legislative recommendations:

• Design a comprehensive national IP Strategy that identifies needed legal and policy reforms, delineates implementation and enforcement responsibilities and allocates sufficient resources to ensure effective enforcement.
• Adopt and implement a significant number of policy and legislative reforms
• Establish a new high-level IP authority to coordinate and implement the IP Strategy and the associated legislative and enforcement reforms
• Build respect for the rule of law and for property rights, and denying to rogue operators the ability to “license” rights that they do not actually have
• Create a Ukrainian Observatory on Counterfeiting and Piracy as platform to join forces and build coalitions between relevant government agencies and representatives from business