Yuri Bolotov
January 2022
I would like to share my impressions. Presently in Kazakhstan there are about 130 registered universities, both national and regional.
University is in its turn a higher educational institution, that is, already such an organization, for students of which, of course, intellectual achievements and rights are needed and important.
Now the teaching of intellectual rights in universities in Kazakhstan, to put it mildly is far from perfect. In my opinion, there is lack of specialists in this field of law, and we are trying in every possible way to contribute to the development of understanding of intellectual property law.
Rrecently our firm sent out an offer to read a free guest lecture named Introduction to the protection of intellectual property in Kazakhstan to all universities. Ten universities accepted our offer.
These were:
- Almaty University of Energy and Communications;
- Narxoz University;
- Kokshetau State University named after Sh. Ualikhanov;
- University named after Suleiman Demirel;
- Turan-Astana University;
- Kazakh National University named after Al-Farabi;
- Caspian University;
- Aktobe Regional University named after K. Zhubanov;
- Kostanay Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan named after Sh. Kabylbaev;
- Kazakh National Pedagogical University named after Abay (KazNPU).
KazNPU has asked to give a lecture next January, two universities have asked for repeat guest lectures and two have asked for a course of lectures, however I have regretfully declined these courses.
This is a kind of rating of the interest of universities in upgrading and teaching of intellectual property law. It is quite possible that in some universities there are such course of lectures devoted to the intellectual property law and included in the curriculum and the lectures we offer are not interesting. However, I am confident that practicing legal professionals can make a significant contribution to any training program.
At the same time, I think that the attitude to such a branch of law and to such a wonderful instrument as intellectual property is a very important indicator in our time, and I advise applicants and parents to pay attention to this.
In fact, according to the American Ocean Tomo LLP, the share of intangible assets in the capital of US companies is as follows (unfortunately, I do not have more up-to-date data):
Source of photo: Zakon.kz
The situation is following in the companies in the European Union, China and Japan:
Source of photo: Zakon.kz
If you look at our Kazakhstani companies, I’m hardly the only one to be upset. Intellectual property must become our priority, so that we can stop being primarily a mining country. To do this, it is necessary to begin to understand the basics of intellectual property from the student (if not school) bench. For this reason, we are trying to conduct additional free training on the basics of intellectual property in universities and will continue this activity, even if not all universities willingly agree to cooperate, I think, even if it is a beneficial cooperation for them.