A series of three awareness raising workshops on the importance of industrial property were organized in Banja Luka, Sarajevo and Mostar during February 2015. within the project “Capacity building of the Institute for Intellectual Property through the establishment of information-educational centers of the Institute”.

The series of workshops were intended to offer to the whole network of specialists from both GOs and NGOs dealing with innovation and IP or IP related matters, enabling the target audience that once the basic concept of IP are presented, to be able to incorporate them in their strategy to facilitate, support and use IP as a tool of innovation and transfer of technology.

Project considers as relevant that among participants was Mrs Biljana Vojvodic, Assistant Minister for Technology at the Ministry for Science and Technology from Republic of Srpska.

Awareness raising events, such as the workshops, are a good tool for clarifying the basic principles of intellectual property protection, distinguishing different rights from one another and enabling the interested public to have some degree of understanding how to properly protect whatever intellectual property they may have.

The biggest issue in the field of protection of inventions is lack of skilled professionals in the field and, in certain cases, incapacity of the inventors to seek their assistance. Local patent professionals lack experience to successfully prosecute patent rights. On the other side, inventors often lack financial means to seek protection outside the country.

Establishing the information centres and continuous education on the topics will be incremental factor in providing motivation, guidance and understanding of the topic and tangling the existing issues.

The trainer on workshops was Slobodan Petošević, an expert whose practice for over 20 years ranges through all areas of intellectual property and primarily concentrates on patent law and enforcement of IP rights. He worked on this issues in more than 15 countries. He represents clients in both contentious and non-contentious matters and negotiates settlements.