EC: Macedonia Moderately Prepared in IP Area

On November 9, 2016, the European Commission published the 2016 report on Macedonia’s (FYROM) progress in the process of EU integration, including the country’s progress in the area of intellectual property.

The report states that Macedonia is moderately prepared in the IP area. While some progress has been made since last year, the strategy on intellectual property has not been developed. The report includes the following conclusions regarding different areas of the IP field:

Copyright and Neighboring Rights

The collective management system in Macedonia is still underdeveloped, even though the copyright law was amended in February 2016 with an aim to regulate the collective management of rights and remuneration distribution and to abolish the remuneration cap.

The report also suggests that the system for electronic recording of broadcast musical works needs to be finalized, and that the capacity of the Ministry of Culture to deal with copyright and neighboring rights remains insufficient.

It is also mentioned that the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services conducted inspections and discovered certain copyright irregularities committed by broadcasters.

Industrial Rights

On a positive note, the State Office of Industrial Property signed a bilateral cooperation agreement with the European Patent Office for the period 2016-18 and joined the so-called Federated European Patent Register.

Coordination of Policy-Making and Legislative Work

The Coordinative Body for Intellectual Property’s jurisdiction does not extend to coordinating policy-making and legislative work. Its funding is insufficient and there is no budget for awareness-raising and education of rights holders and the public about the importance of intellectual property rights.

Enforcement

The report claims that coordination between the enforcement authorities is insufficient, and that the number of court cases dealing with IP rights infringement is still low.

The European Commission suggests the following:

• Increasing stakeholder engagement when drafting legislation;
• Increasing efforts to investigate and prosecute IP rights infringement;
• Reinforcing capacity and coordination among the authorities in charge of implementing IP laws; and
• Raising public awareness of the importance of protecting IP rights.

Prepared by: Olja Zečević

For more information, please contact macedonia@petosevic.com.

Source: European Commission report