On Wednesday, November 27th 2024, at the festive hall of the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia in Belgrade, on the occasion of the celebration of the 104th anniversary of the Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Serbia, awards have been presented to the winners of the competition organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for 2024 in the five categories.
Mr. Vladimir Marić, Director of the Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Serbia, in his opening address, reminded us of the words of Ivo Andrić and the importance of preservation of humanity in everything we engage in:
“Something occurred to me while I have read the essays “Signs along the Road”, one masterful reminder of Ivo Andrić, concerning the relation of man towards the celebration of the New Year. The last days of the old year, as Andrić has spoken, people usually discard as the crumbs of bread from the bag and they direct all their attention to the festive moment of the departure of the old year and the arrival of the new year. It seemed to me, as I noticed that while laughing inside, that our relation here to the celebration organized today is a bit like that.
The next year is a jubilee, the next year we expect guests from abroad, and today we have celebration in the family circle. So to speak, the relatives are coming to the festivity. However, it seems to me, and that feeling keeps on growing as the years pass, that the most valuable moments of my life are those spent with the people I love, bound to me only with a feeling of friendship and nice and honest intentions.
Therefore, this anniversary, when we celebrate 104 years of the existence of our Office, is just like that, and as all other celebrations so far, brings pleasant emotions of gathering with the old acquaintances bound together by the same job and numerous nice memories. We are now together again, dear friends, as many times before.”
Director Marić expressed his gratitude to the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia for the organization of this festivity, since the premisses of the Office are under construction at the moment:
“The celebration of the Day of the Intellectual Property Office could not have been organized at the address of 5, Kneginje Lubice Street, because the reconstruction is under way. The building is being redecorated after many years and that is really exceptional benefit. I am grateful to the Government of the Republic of Serbia and the European Union, whose funds are used to finance the works.
Till the spring of 2025, the works on our building should be completed, and the working conditions shall be immaculate. To my mind, it has not been so bad so far, but after the reconstruction they shall be even better and more humane. In spite of the challenging circumstances, that the Office has faced for some time, our working results have not weakened.”
He also emphasized positive achievements in the protection of the rights of actors that had happened in the previous year:
“With great pleasure, I wish to emphasize that our collective organization protecting rights of actors for the first time this year, performed the distribution of royalties. To my mind, it is a step in the good direction.
Not only because it is meant to improve the economic position of those people. That is the outcome. More because it shows that our community, as a whole, improves for the better.
The respect of intellectual property is a reflection of the degree of civilization level of a particular society. Of one nation. Recognition belongs to all the business subjects in Serbia honestly paying that compensation to our authors and holders of related rights.”
Mr. Mihajlo Vesović, Director of the Sector for Strategic Analysis, Services and Internationalisation of the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia, in his opening address, stated the importance of the long-lasting tradition in the protection of intellectual property rights in Serbia:
“Tradition of 104 years of the existence of the Intellectual Property Office speaks for itself that we are indeed the economy that can boast the understanding what intellectual property means, and although during those 104 years, we found ourselves in various social circumstances, in pretty difficult situations, the worst of times were those when we did not respect intellectual property rights.
It seems to me, that in the previous 20 years, we have been advancing gradually and that can indeed be seen judging from the results. First of all, it is clear to us that the incentive for the growth of the investments is the direct effect of the activities of the Intellectual Property Office, resulting in the possibility to say that the innovations and investments are increasing and that the investments directly depend on the protection of IP rights, in particular foreign direct investments, since big brands do not go to countries notorious for not protecting intellectual property rights, so they do not invest there.
That may be the best part of our economy at this moment – 4.5 billion annual investments and the presence of all global brands that is also very important. The sign of the growth of intellectual property is the sign of growth of the sector contributing most to economy in the last 20 years – the sector of new technologies, IT, artificial intelligence and all things connected to it.
We can boast the export of 3.5 million annually, realized by the IT industries, in particular, and it grew from 2-3% to 12-13% of the total economy. It is a brilliant and very exact sign how intellectual property protection influences this field. Finally, when you come to the 8-9% of unemployment, it is clear to you that new investments and new employment may come from those fields that include high technologies, demanding highly educated people, with high degree of knowledge and that is just the point demonstrating how intellectual property gives the additional advantage to an economy.”
Mr. Bojan Žirović, President of the Assembly of the Actor’s Organization of Serbia (AOS), in his speech, emphasized the importance of the beginning of the payment of royalties by the AOS to their members:
“The Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Serbia, on October 11, 2021, passed a decision adopting, for the period of five years, the request of the Actor’s Organization of Serbia and issued the permission for the performance of activities of the collective realization of the rights of performers personally engaged in the performance in the framework of a certain drama, dramatic and musical, cinematographic or television work.
The work on the adoption of the distribution plan followed, the elaboration of the website, enabling the users of right to register and classify their works, along with a lot of other things, resulting in the first payment of royalties by the AOS, at the beginning of August of 2024.
Until October 31, 2024, a total of 420 holders of rights were paid. In the effort to meet the needs of all the holders of rights to the maximum effect, in the daily communication with them, at the end of November, another 119 performers were paid, who registered their performances in the period August – September 2024. In spite of the problems during the payments to the non-residents, AOS, till November 22, 2024, paid off nine non-residents that are AOS members.”
He also expressed gratitude to the help that the state offered for the realization of this goal:
“I feel very well because the state recognized the problem of one endangered group, offered the possibility to solve that problem, and provided support for the solution of that problem. I am happy, because we, as a trade, recognized the common interest, gathered and joined forces to realize our right. I am proud because we are one of the exceptional organizations in Europe, and in the region quite so. When I shoot something out of Serbia, colleagues draw my attention in particular to that and they speak about Serbian actors with respect.
I am proud that our distribution plan is created in such a way that nobody is underrated, disregarded, and we all adopted the idea to give the considerable amount of money into Solidarity Fund, so that we are able to help colleagues in trouble. I am happy that the right from our works shall be at the disposal of our heirs. And I believe that on the wave of this victory, we shall go further asking the solution for the problems of our profession, position on the market, conditions for work and so forth.”
Mr. Goran Jović, Director of the Regional Chamber of Commerce Leskovac, emphasized in his speech the importance that the indications of geographical origin have for the local development of Leskovac and the vicinity:
“We started with the grill from Leskovac back in the 2007, we protected homemade ajvar in 2011. International protection of homemade ajvar from Leskovac followed through the Lisbon Agreement in 2012. It is one of the four products for which we have international protection, according to the Lisbon Agreement.
I think that is not much, as Mr. Marić spoke, we should continue working on this agenda, working on the strong protection and protect all our products, because we had one period of vacuum when many countries in the region took over our products and had them protected before we did. However, we are trying to achieve successful protection and I believe we are efficient now.
When you see that people can live from your successful effort to let them protect their product, which may be 3-5 times more expensive on the market, that those people start living, that farms start expanding, that they become small entrepreneurs, micro-companies, even small companies and that it is all turning into serious business. That means that we have been successful in the effort to emphasize our cultural heritage and to slowly protect it, bearing in mind what is authentic for our areas. We had very good organization, a lot of goodwill and our first product to be protected was presented in Siena in their Chamber of Commerce.
We are proud of our actions and, of course, through various projects we had in the previous period, through the funds of the European Union, we succeeded to get leaders position for all brands, here in the south of Serbia. It is important not to be ashamed of what we have, it is important to promote what we have, to keep our quality, but not at the expense of quantity that must be increased, so the result shall not be missing.”
Radivoj Ćulum, from the agricultural estate Ćulum, stated his experience about the importance of the indication of geographical origin: “Cabbage from Futog” for the agriculture producers from Futog:
“Cabbage from Futog has lasted for 300 years in Futog. Since 1979, our company has been engaged in the production of sour cabbage. Sometime around 2002-2003, we got the idea to mark our products in a certain way. So, in cooperation with the Intellectual Property Office, around 2008, we certified our product for the first time.
In that whole story, we have been trying in the framework of the Association Sour Cabbage from Futog, to observe what other countries practice, so we used that experience and visited Italy and France, that have made significant progress and Switzerland as well. And we observed that those products that we have in Serbia may be branded and as such exist in this region so that we may stimulate producers engaged in their production.”
Awards of the World Intellectual Property Organization were presented to the winners by Vladimir Marić, Director of the Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Serbia.
The WIPO National Award for Inventors, in the category of inventors or group of inventors for patents that are valid and have practical use and proved success on the market was presented to prof, Aleksandra Ivetić, PhD, that realized protection of patent no RS 65548 for the invention under the title “Silage stabilizers”. Invention is protected by a patent, offers safe and efficient manner of the preservation of silage from harmful oxidation by air and creates a safe environment for the development of lactic acid bacteria. The application of this innovative additive has its own position on the market that has the tendency to develop in the forthcoming period. Cooperation agreements have been signed with several companies in the country and abroad, dealing with the production and commercialization of additives.
Aleksandra Ivetić spoke about the award and her invention:
“Allow me to express my gratitude for receiving this prestigious award. It is a great honour and pleasure for me as an inventor. These are moments to be remembered, because we, as inventors, are lonely most of the time during our work. We keep our focus on ourselves and some creative energy, hoping to see the result and that such an outcome will become spiritus movens improving the society even for the tiniest bit.”
The WIPO National Award for Enterprises, in the category for domestic legal entity or domestic entrepreneur for the economic application of industrial property went to the company “Perfect Body Shine” from Belgrade owned by Jasmina Momčilović Nikolić. This company deals with the production and sale of cosmetic apparatuses that without invasion and efficiently solve the challenging esthetic needs of the face and body. The innovative design and technology for these apparatuses are protected both on the national and international level. The company “Perfect Body Shine” has been chosen to represent Serbia on the exhibition organized in July 2023 in Geneva at the seat of the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Jasmina Momčilović Nikolić, the owner of the company, in her emotional speech, emphasized the importance of protection of quality products:
“I had an aim when I entered this whole project, and it was to protect all my products, to use patent protection, to make them recognizable as Serbian products, as they really are, 95% of the product are of Serbian origin and everything is hand-made. I wished everything to be protected, posh and to enable us in Serbia to present our activities in a luxurious way. Reactions from the world came accordingly. Everybody was fascinated by this whole project.”
The National Award for Creativity, in the category for an author for monograph/study exhibition with a catalogue in the field of social and humanistic sciences was presented to Slobodan Antonić, PhD, full-time professor of the Faculty of Philology of Belgrade University for the book Colonial (anti) Education. Professor Antonić, in the award-winning book examines the crisis of the education system bent under bureaucratic pressures observing education system just as expenditure of social wealth and not as a continual creation and he offers a critical insight into influences of globalisation on the Serbian education system. The conclusion is that good education should always have priority in relation to all other social activities, and in that context the existential importance of intellectual property protection should best be understood.
Professor Slobodan Antonić emphasized two basic ideas from his book:
“I would like to express my gratitude to the jury and the Office for recognising and rewarding two basic ideas contained in this book. The first relates to our school system, our education, our need to first recognize the good points in it. Namely, we have the so-called paradox of reform, meaning that we continually discuss what the education is like, how it must be reformed and we continually reform it in waves, and that very education, that schooling produces top scientists and experts exceptionally valued in the world. How is it possible that such an education and schooling system, a cause of our dissatisfaction that must be continually reformed, may give such good results? First we must distinguish what is good from what is bad, and that is one of the ideas of this book.
And the other idea concerns the media itself, the book as the media. We have a problem, and that problem may be that the generations of students who read and enjoy reading are leaving, while generations having problem with the book as a media are coming.”
The award WIPO National Award for Schoolchildren, in the category of pupils or group of high school pupils for an invention, was presented to Miloš Radulović, student of the Mechanical Engineering and Traffic School in Čačak, who, as of this year, is a student at the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad, with the invention Solar Tracker Systems and Storage of Renewable Energy – HHO Generator. Miloš Radulović is the winner of numerous awards in the field of innovation, including the first prize for the research work at the national competition of talented high school students in Čačak, in the month of May of this year. The invention of solar tracking systems with renewable storage of energy (Solar Tracker and HHO Generator) solves the problem of the efficiency of solar panels that optimally use solar energy for tracking the Sun along certain axes. The solution defined in this way offers a higher level of output energy compared to static mounting of solar panels, and as such solves the problem of cheap storage of renewable energy.
Miloš Radulović emphasized in his address:
“I would like to thank the professors who inspired me to create the entire project. We had a competition where we had to create a project that would use completely green energy, and my idea was to use something that is already green, that being solar panels and to improve the system by some 20-30%. With the addition of using HHO generators for the system, we can extract the energy obtained and store it better than batteries can do.”
In cooperation with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an award was also presented to the domestic legal entity with the highest frequency of use of the international trademark registration system during 2023 – the WIPO National Award for WIPO Users. This award went to the company “MAXIMA D.O.O. Dragiše Mišovića 16, 32240 Lučani”, which had the largest number of internationally registered trademarks in 2024 in comparison to all domestic legal entities.
Mirjana Perović, sales director for Belgrade and Vojvodina, from the company MAXIMA d.o.o. spoke about the importance of international protection of products using trademarks:
“We started with the daily production of 5 tons, after 30 years we have a daily production of 1000 tons, we have annual revenue of 80 million euros and more than 300 employees. In addition to the domestic market, and the market in the region, implying countries of the former Yugoslavia, we also sell a lot of products on the European market, in Italy, France, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Sweden, Malta and Cyprus, where without trademarks and investment in our brands our export would not be possible in such a quantity.
Our investment in intellectual property speaks of our ambition to expand our business even further. We think that all companies should protect their trademarks on time, as they worked on them for many years, because the brand we posses and the reputation we have are our greatest assets.”
The ceremony continued with a cocktail party and the announcement of the exhibition “Guardians of Innovation” about the first Serbian patents, which opens on December 12 at 6 p.m. in the Museum of Science and Technology, 51, Skenderbegova Street in Belgrade.
This exhibition of the first Serbian patents, recognized by the Administration for Industrial Property, was planned to take place in 2021, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the recognition of the first Serbian patent, but for well-known reasons related to the epidemic, it was not realized then. The public will be able to see the prototypes of Serbian patents from the first few years of existence of the Industrial Property Administration, whose successor is the Intellectual Property Office.
