Ukraine Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Regulatory Review

Abstract

This report is one of four analytical pieces on Ukraine’s innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem developed by the World Bank’s Ukraine Technical Assistance on Innovation, supported by the Swedish Ukraine Financial and Enterprise Sector Recovery and Growth Trust Fund. The review presents an in-depth analysis of Ukraine’s intellectual property system regarding its support to technology transfer and commercialization of publicly funded research and development. The analysis attempts to identify regulatory and framework impediments for the commercialization of publicly funded research and recommends reforms and policies that could improve the framework conditions for intellectual property (IP) and technology transfer (TT). The analysis is based on available legal, regulatory, and policy documents and information from secondary resources as well as qualitative interviews with stakeholders. The review finds that academic and publicly funded research in Ukraine rarely reaches the market due to its inherently basic research orientation; its lack of relevance to local industry needs; low capacity and demand for research by the private sector; legal, institutional, and administrative hurdles; weak culture of research commercialization; and limited incentives for commercialization of research results. Moreover, technology transfer offices and intermediaries are yet to be