The members of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Estonia (AmCham) met Mr. Erki Savisaar, and Mr. Tarmo Kruusimägi, Members of Estonian Parliament’s Economic Committee. The IPR Committee introduced their concerns regarding the underestimation of the importance of IPR in Estonian policy-making and law creation. The IPR Committee emphasized the need to apply higher protection to IPR owners as it has turned to become more complicated to create and protect the creations in the current environment.
It is of utmost importance for foreign companies active in Estonia that Estonia stays competitive in the long-term. For that, the state support for starting businesses and their innovative products and services should help these businesses to export and realize the deserved pay for what they have created also over the longer term. To gain from the policy measure of supporting these businesses, it is important that their intellectual property would be registered in Estonia. The intellectual property, be it a patent, trademark, brand, copyright or else, makes up a constantly increasing share of today’s business’s value. “What Estonia needs to stay competitive is a long-term strategy to support the creation and value-maximization of intellectual property”, emphasized Pirjo Jha from PriceWaterhouseCoopers Legal. Today we do not have such supporting structure in Estonia that embodies intellectual property, business models and business development life-span, but we see that other countries are contributing more and more financial resources to exactly that cause. “We are losing the intellectual property created in Estonia already at its early stage to a foreign investor while Estonia has the capability to reverse the process and make it work for Estonia instead”, added Jha.
Mr. Savisaar agreed that a broader discussion on intellectual property rights is needed, but this would assume companies to be even more forthcoming in sharing their views and proposals with the Parliament.
The Intellectual Property Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Estonia has been active already for more than 10 years committing to increase the IPR awareness in Estonia, observing the law creation and legal practice related to IP; and cooperating with Estonian institutions to support a strong and cost-effective IPR environment. During the meeting the IPR Committee presented its IPR White Paper which can be accessed HERE
Additional information:
Maris Leemets
AmCham IPR Committee Chair
Maris.Leemets@pmi.com
