Today, November 15, Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture Tymofii Mylovanov dismissed Zhaldak Valerii from the post of Director of the Intellectual Property Department and Kudin Andrii from the post of head of the Ukrpatent State Enterprise. In turn, the head of the National Intellectual Property Office wrote a letter of resignation.

The reason was the collective complaint of Ukrpatent employees.

“Today, we have embarked on the rebooting of our activity in the sector of intellectual property. The new agency will be established exceptionally on the basis of the Ukrpatent”, said Minister Tymofii Mylovanov.

Natalia Petrova was appointed an acting director of the Ukrpatent SE.

It should be noted that today Minister Tymofii Mylovanov has had a follow-up meeting with the staff members of Ukrpatent SE, who on November 11 appealed to the Ministry with a request to prevent the liquidation of the enterprise.

The employees complained about the unlawful actions of Zhaldak Valerii with regards to the signing of the “Budget to ensure the development and functioning of the state system of legal protection of intellectual property in 2018, which is formed at the expense of the proceeds to the accounts of Ukrpatent SE from fees for actions related to the protection of rights to objects of intellectual property”. For the first time the statement of estimates was signed not by the head of the enterprise, but by an official of the Ministry.

Employees pointed to numerous complaints from industry specialists, delays in considering applications from trademarks, low salaries, and outflow of personnel.

In addition, officials established a duplicate body, the National Intellectual Property Office (NIPO). The existence of two institutions in the field of intellectual property (Ukrpatent and NIPO) is economically unviable and leads to the decline of Ukrpatent SE as the core institution of expertise.