USAID Will Assist Sakpatenti in Finalizing the Draft Amendments to the Law of Georgia on Copyright and Related Rights

Sakpatenti and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) start cooperation to improve the intellectual property rights enforcement system in creative industries. To this end, on March 25, 2021, Mr. Mindia Davitadze, Chairman of National Intellectual Property Centre of Georgia Sakpatenti, and Mr. Mark McCord, USAID Economic Security Program Chief of Party, signed a Memorandum of Understanding.

To ensure development of the creative industries sector, the Memorandum envisages strengthening cooperation for increasing the competitiveness of Georgia, which is manifested in improvement of policy framework against online piracy and raising awareness on piracy and intellectual property rights.

Within the Memorandum, with the active involvement of stakeholders, the parties will work on finalizing the draft amendments to the Law of Georgia on Copyright and Related Rights. In addition, with the support of USAID Economic Security Program, activities will be carried out aimed at raising awareness of right holders, customers, representatives of private and public sectors and media. Access to the pirated content should be minimized, which will create more favourable business environment for the development of this sector and will give the creative industries representatives, content producers and distribution companies an opportunity of effective protection of their rights, development of their business, creation of new jobs and generation of higher income.

At the meeting, held at Sakpatenti head office, Mr. Mindia Davitadze, Chairman of Sakpatenti, noted that it is very important for the office to offer high level protection of copyright and related rights for representatives of creative industries and to raise public awareness in this regard to ensure that citizens respect intellectual property of other people. Mr. Mark McCord, USAID Economic Security Program Chief of Party, said that he supports Sakpatenti initiative to carry out a number of measures to eliminate online piracy and protect intellectual property rights, as these issues are essential for competitiveness of creative industries sector of Georgia and work in this direction will enable the country to increase the number of international film and television projects. The process of public-private dialogue within the Program has further highlighted the importance of these issues and USAID is glad that Sakpatenti will be actively involved in implementation of this initiative.