The Ukrainian Intellectual Property Institute (Ukrpatent) issued 239 patents for inventions and useful models in the processing industry in 2017, including 42 in the sphere of production of key pharmaceutical products and medicines, which is the largest figure in the past five years. Ukrpatent told Interfax-Ukraine that in 2016, Ukrpatent issued 29 patents to national producers in the sphere of pharmaceutical production, 10 in 2015, seven in 2014 and 19 in 2013.
In January-March 2018, Ukrpatent issued 61 patents for inventions and utility models in the processing industry, including five in production of basic pharmaceutical products and medicines. In the first quarter of 2016 and 2017 in the field of pharmaceutical production, 11 patents were issued, in 2014 – none, in 2014 – four.
At the same time, Ukrpatent told Interfax-Ukraine that “Ukrainian legislation in the field of protection of rights to utility models and industrial designs does not provide for a qualification examination, so sometimes unfair applicants apply for facilities that are already in the economic flow.”
Ukrpatent reminded that in Ukraine patents for industrial designs and utility models are issued using the declarative system, which does not provide for a qualification examination, which, in the institute’s opinion, corresponds to a fairly widespread international practice.
In this case, the qualification examination can either be conducted, or not conducted, or carried out under a shortened procedure. According to the institute, in 2017, Ukrpatent received 2,480 applications for industrial designs, 9,105 applications for utility models and 4,048 applications for inventions. At the same time, Ukrpatent said that the term “declarative patent” is currently absent in the legislation of Ukraine.
INSTITUTE, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, PATENTS, PHARMA PRODUCTION
Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday passed at first reading bill No. 3871 amending some Ukrainian laws regarding the ban on the use of palm oil in food. A total of 233 lawmakers backed the document.
The bill proposes amending the Code of Administrative Offenses of Ukraine, the laws on milk and dairy products, on the key principles and requirements to safety and quality of food. The amendments introduce administrative punishment for production and sale of food with palm oil content. It is banned to use palm oil in production of dairy products and food made in Ukraine.
The violation of the law implies a fine from 20 to 100 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens (UAH 17) imposed on officials. The repeated violation committed during one year after imposing the first fine entails a fine from 100 to 200 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens.
The State Export Control Service of Ukraine has designed a draft anti-corruption program for 2018-2019. According to the document posted on the website of the authority, the program is intended to create the effective corruption prevention and reveal system in the authority based on new principles of making and implementing the anti-corruption policy.
Among measures to be taken is the analysis of data in relation to corruption risks in the authority, as well as factor that give rise to it; regular monitoring of the implementation of tasks and functions by the authority with the purpose of revealing and removing conditions giving rise to corruption risks and corruption crimes.
The measures also include the provision of financial supervision through declaration of property, income, expenses of officials and employees of the authority, creation of proper conditions for receiving information from whistleblowers who exposes corruption and crimes linked to corruption and the creation of the system of their protection and keeping information in secret.
According to the analysis of corruption risks posted on the website of the authority, corruption risks with medium and high priority are the following: providing advice on processing and submission of necessary documents in the field of export control to the authority; acceleration or delay in the processing of applications of subjects of international transfers of goods to obtain permits for the right to export and import military goods; a lack of a clear procedure for investigating offenses in the sphere of state export control and a lack of authority of the relevant department to identify these offenses independently; leakage of information from electronic databases operating by the authority and other risks.
Cattle numbers in Ukraine as of May 1, 2018 amounted to almost 3.94 million animals, which is 4.4% less compared to early May 2017, the State Statistics Service has reported. According to the report, the number of cows shrank by 3.8% over the period, to 2.03 million.
The number of pigs decreased by 6.3% in April 2018, to 6.18 million, sheep and goats – by 3.9%, to 1.62 million animals.
The number of poultry grew by 1.2% compared with early May 2017, to 201.08 million birds.
As reported, with reference to statistical data, cattle numbers in Ukraine (excluding the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea and Sevastopol and the ATO zone) in 2017 amounted to 3.682 million animals, which is 1.5% less compared to 2016. Pig numbers fell by 8.2%, to 6.12 million, sheep and goats grew by 0.1%, to 1.316 million and poultry – by 1.7%, to 205.103 million.
The number of pigs fell by 5.8%, to 6.669 million, poultry by 1.1%, to 201.7 million birds, and sheep and goats by 0.8%, to 1.315 million.
The deficit of Ukraine’s foreign trade with goods in January-March 2018 grew 1.5-fold year-over-year, reaching $1.201 billion ($794.1 million in Q1 2017), the State Statistics Service reported on Tuesday. In March, the deficit was $460 million, while in February – $457 million and in January – $284.1 million.
In January-March 2018, exports of goods grew by 10.3% year-over-year, to $11.435 billion, and imports – by 13.2%, to $12.636 billion.
In March 2018 compared with the previous month seasonally adjusted volumes of exports grew by 2.5% and imports – by 2%. The seasonally adjusted deficit of foreign trade in March 2018 was $338.7 million, in February 2018 – the deficit was $352.9 million and in January – $519.9 million.
As a result, the coefficient of coverage of imports by exports was 0.90 (in January-March 2017 some 0.93).
The service said foreign trade operations were conducted with partners from 209 countries.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman predicts that the new Beskydsky tunnel will be launched by the end of May.
“The new two-track railway Beskydsky tunnel, which is the largest infrastructure facility of the Ukrainian railways built in the years of independence, will be finally launched by late May, as the government resolution requires,” the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine reported on Tuesday, citing Groysman.
The prime minister paid attention to the fact that the tunnel is an important logistic component of routes for exports of Ukrainian products to the European Union (EU).
“We need to ensure support of exports, so we do not have problems with supplies of products,” he said.
In addition, the prime minister said that issues of providing wagons and increasing the quality of servicing, first of all, in the passenger segment, should be solved quickly.
As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in March 2018 increased the estimated cost of construction of the Beskydsky railroad tunnel by UAH 737 million, to UAH 2.292 million.
The Beskydsky tunnel was built in 1886 and has already exhausted its operational resource. Trains pass the tunnel with the minimum speed. In addition, the single-track tunnel limited the capacity of the entire international transport corridor.
The new tunnel is to start operating at full on May 25, 2018.
