NCIP senior officials quit work in protest

The management of the National Centre of Intellectual Property protests against the administrative reform.

The cause of the conflict is that the National Centre of Intellectual Property (NCIP) disagree with the administrative reform that deprives employees of the patent agency of the status of government officials. All senior managers and some ordinary employees of the centre have dismissed.

NCIP employees published an open letter on the official website. “This madness cannot last long,” they described their problem.

The full text of the letter is below:

“The staff of the National Centre of Intellectual Property expresses its sincere gratitude to the centre's head D. Niadzvetski and thanks his for his months-long stubborn struggle to save the unique specialists and the national system of intellectual property resting on their brains and talents.

We don't know what we will achieve, but we will work hard to revive what our country had been building for over 20 years and almost ruined for a few months having decided that it would be wise to deprive patent agency employees of the status of civil servants to optimise the system of government agencies. The matter is the specialists who, on behalf of the state, make decisions on issuing protection documents; settle disputes in the industrial property sector; bear responsibility for national registries; work out legal acts protecting the state's interests in the international arena; perform other duties that the state needs.

We will continue to speak about the unique character of the Belarusian system of intellectual property and the people who contribute to it. Their high professional level was praised by specialists of the World Intellectual Property Organization, the Eurasian Economic Commission, the Eurasian Patent Organization and foreign patent agencies. We are losing talents. Specialists of the patent agency, who have served the state for many years, have to look for a new job in other organisations that will allow them to have the same salaries that, though not being high, allowed them to feed their families.

We will push all efforts to turn into reality our idea of a high value of intellectual property. Foreign counties inculcating this idea from early childhood develop actively and enter international markets. We lag behind so far. We will remain among laggards until we open our eyes and admit the truth.

We hope the people who disagreed to work under the new conditions and quit on June 28, 2013, will soon return. This madness cannot last long. Is it not madness if the organisation doesn't have the head and the people who make the decisions that the state needs?

We don't lose hopes. We want to believe that we will finally receive an answer to our letter about the future of the national system of intellectual property that almost 140 employees of the patent agency sent to the Administration of the President of the Republic of Belarus on April 19, 2013.

The staff that will always be with you...”

The National Centre of Intellectual Property subordinate to the State Committee on Science and Technologies of Belarus protects the rights on intellectual property items and performs functions of a patent body.