International scientific-practical Conference on “Intellectual Property Rights: The Challenges of the 21st Century”
- Details
- Published: December 1, 2020

From 10 to 14 November 2020, the international scientific-practical online conference on “Intellectual Property Rights: The Challenges of the 21st Century” was held in Tomsk with the support of IRZ. More than 900 people from 16 countries took part in the event, which was aimed at experts in the field:
- judges,
- representatives of the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent),
- patent attorneys
- academics and
- other experts in the field of intellectual property.
One of the many speakers at the event was the Deputy Head of the Department for Control over Advertising and Unfair Competition at the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation (the equivalent to the German Federal Cartel Office), Yana Sklyarova. She gave a lecture during the session on “Competition law and intellectual property” at the conference.
Each day of the event focussed on a different topic:
- 10 November – opening and plenary session
- 11 November – cumulative protection of design
- 12 November – industrial property rights
- 13 November – competition law and intellectual property
- 14 November – digital rights and rights to new technologies
The German experts appointed by IRZ were involved on three of the five days of the conference. Dr. Ina Schnurr, a judge at the German Federal Patent Court, gave a speech at the plenary session on 10 November. Her lecture provided an insight into patent nullity proceedings at the German Federal Patent Court. She also presented a few examples of the latest rulings made by the court in the area of patents and supplementary protection certificates.
On 11 November, Manuel Soria Parra, a patent attorney at the “Meissner Bolte” law firm, took part in the session on the “Cumulative Protection of Design”. His lecture provided an overview of the potential and significance of design protection in Europe and Germany and also took a brief look at the effects of Brexit on registered European design patents.
Prof. Dr. Christian Czychowski and Dr. Anke Nordemann-Schiffel from the Nordemann law firm took part in the session held on 13 November. As lawyers and specialists in copyright law and media law, they spoke about “Competition Law and intellectual Property - an Overview from an EU Perspective”. Their lecture pointed out the inherent conflict between intellectual property rights and competition law and provided examples of how the balance between freedom of competition and protecting rights to intellectual property is maintained.
The conference was broadcast live on YouTube. This gave the general public the opportunity to ask questions in the chat session, which led to lively discussions after each lecture. The great success of the conference was reflected in the high number of participants from an international background and the wide range of subjects discussed.