IP&IT Law 2021 awards its winners

The IP&IT Law 2021 contest, organized by IP CLUB and the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ under the auspices of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications, has held its award ceremony as part of the Russian Internet Governance Forum (RIGF 2021). This year, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as well as Russian state bodies – the Federal Antimonopoly Service, the Intellectual Property Rights Court, and Rospatent – supported the event. Several partner companies provided valuable awards to the best contenders.

Although the winners and runners-up had already been determined and announced, the interested public was held in suspense because the placement of the three top contenders was not revealed until the ceremony. The first place was awarded to a student from the Higher School of Economics, Yulia Tyasto, for her paper on Legal Protection of Digital Assets: A Dualistic Approach to the Legal Nature of a Social Networking Resource. She also received a special prize from WIPO. As the winner of the competition, Yulia was also given an opportunity to join the renowned law firm Yegorov, Puginsky, Afanasyev & Partners for an internship with a compensation package. Yulia Tyasto’s work was also recognized as the best in the Legal Protection of Digital Assets category sponsored by the Zartsyn and Partners law firm.

The second place went to Yekaterina Mikhaleva, a postgraduate student at the MGIMO international relations university for her paper on Correlation between Information Law and Intellectual Property Law. The third prize was taken by Alla Tiunova, a master's student at the Higher School of Economics, for the work Information and Creative Components of Intellectual Property: An Analysis with Respect to Free Use of Copyrighted Products in the Context of Digital Technologies Development.

The contest partners awarded winners in the special categories they sponsored:

• A prize from the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia went to Svetlana Burchik (Master's student at the Higher School of Economics);
• The law firm ALRUD noted Anastasia Snopkova (student at Moscow State University);
• The law firm Semenov & Pevzner recognized Yekaterina Artemyeva (Master's student at the Higher School of Economics);
• The Development of Legal Systems Publishing House awarded Svetlana Fomina (Master's student at the Law Institute of the Siberian Federal University).

This contest has become a magnet for future industry lawyers, President of IP CLUB and Chair of the IP&IT Law Jury Marina Rozhkova noted. “We are working to ensure a growing number of papers are submitted for entry and to encourage young people to take an interest in matters of law and intellectual property. We are happy to support young people who strive for knowledge and want to work for the benefit of their country and society. The winning contenders’ works, as well as other entries that earned honorable mentions, will be published in the Digital Economy Law 2022 annual review and the Intellectual Property Rights Court’s journal or the Russian Competition Law and Economics magazine,” she said.

We congratulate the winners and look forward to new interesting submissions from participants in the 2022 contest, which traditionally starts this fall.