Meeting was Held at Sakpatenti with the Management of the “Intellectual Property Owners Association” (IPOA) and Author Performers

A meeting was held at the Head Office of the National Intellectual Property Center of Georgia – “Sakpatenti” with the management of the “Intellectual Property Owners Association” (IPOA), the winner of the accreditation competition, and author performers. 

The Chairman of Sakpatenti congratulated IPOA on receiving the accreditation and noted that Sakpatenti will continue to support protection of copyright and related rights. For this purpose, special attention will be paid to proper implementation of the principles of transparency, fairness and effective activity, established by the new regulations. Protection of the rights of each author will be a priority. At the same time, it is also important to protect the interests of users of rights. In their turn, IPOA representatives noted that, along with collective management of rights, their task is to develop the field of intellectual property, first of all, to conduct activities in such a way that will enable each author and performer to receive the maximum benefit. 

The meeting was attended by Mr. Soso Giorgadze, Chairman of Sakpatenti, Ms. Tika Nebieridze, Acting Deputy Chairperson, Mr. Giorgi Nikoleishvili, Director of IPOA, Ms. Tamar Gvarishvili, Chairperson of IPOA Board, Ms. Rusa Morchiladze,  Chairman of IPOA Authors’ Board, and Mr. Kakha Tsabadze, member of Authors’ Board.

Accepting of applications for participation in the accreditation competition began on September 26, 2023 and ended on November 26. During this period, three organizations submitted applications for accreditation: “Georgian Copyright Association" (GCA), “Georgian Neighboring Rights Association” (GNRA) and “Intellectual Property Owners Association” (IPOA). It should be noted that GCA did not meet most of the requirements established by the legislation of Georgia, and this was mentioned in its own statement. As regards the other two organizations, copyright management was requested only by IPOA, whereas GNRA requested management for the part of related rights as well. It should be taken into account that during the accreditation process, a considerable part of the founders and authors of GNRA applied to the Commission with a request to grant accreditation to IPOA. According to the decision of the Commission, accreditation was granted to IPOA, which met the legal requirements best of all.

 The Commission for Accreditation included: Chairman of Sakpatenti, who at the same time is the Chairman of the Commission for Accreditation; 2 Members of the Parliament of Georgia, selected in accordance with the regulations of the Parliament of Georgia; a representative of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia; a representative of the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia; a representative of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth of Georgia and the Head of the Administration of the Government of Georgia. 

It should be noted that accreditation was granted by the Commission to a collective management organization of economic rights on the basis of compliance with the criteria established by the law for the first time in Georgia, after a reform was implemented in the field and amendments drafted on the basis of directives of the European Union and the recommendations of international experts were made to the Law adopted in 1999.

It is also important that, within the reform, in addition to the accreditation rule, effective mechanisms for protection of economic rights have been introduced and modern, transparent rules for collection and distribution of royalties have been defined. At the same time, to ensure the principle of good governance in the collective management organization, appropriate standards have been established. The Law also defines relevant mechanisms in case the organization does not fulfill properly the obligations imposed on it. Sakpatenti is again defined as the body controlling fulfillment of requirements and obligations stipulated by the Law on Copyright and Related Rights, as well as that of decisions made by Sakpatenti.