Russia, within the context of its national and international policy on development of innovations, promotion of trade and support of investments, strives to create a strong, harmonized with the world community system in the field of intellectual property rights, the key element of which is development of culture of representatives of public and private sectors of economy in various aspects of intellectual property.

One of the examples of this is creation in 1998 by joint efforts of the Russian Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology, Rospatent, the Russian firms of patent attorneys and innovation companies an information and consultation centre on intellectual property and legal aspects of technology commercialization "Intelcom" (www.ipr.inage.ru), access to powerful interactive resources of which got the Russian and foreign users, including innovators, researches, legal advisors, public officers, entrepreneurs, small and medium sized businesses and research institutes.

Having focused its activity on clarification of a wide range of issues related to a legal protection and use of intellectual property, as well as prevention of unfair competition, "Intelcom" have implemented a number of unique projects, including the international ones, together with the European Patent Office, Public Diplomacy Division of NATO, American Bar Association, Law offices Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett&Dunner L.L.P. (USA), Bristol University (UK) and Department of Energy (USA). In searching the most effective forms of organisation of its activity in 2002 Intelcom was transformed into the innovation business club, and announced of the opening of a programme aimed at creation of favourable innovation environment in Russia, by mobilizing of intellectual, industrial and financial potentials, as well as spurring of international cooperation.

Within a rather short period of its activity, Intelcom has become one of the most visited website in the field of intellectual property rights and technology commercialization in Russia, the information and services of which are daily used by hundreds of people all over the world. According to estimates of the European Commission, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Bank, the European Patent Office, the website is the best in the world of specialized (bilingual) websites on issues of protection and use of intellectual property in Russia. Its popularity is due to use of systemic approach to intellectual property issues, active use of modern Internet technologies (based on the unique software) and high international standard relevant level of provision of information (in the Russian and the English languages), and services of legal, organisational and economic nature covering all aspects of IPRs, including financing, protection and commercialisation of R&D results, as well as preventing unfair competition.

Profound structural transformations of the Russian bodies of the federal executive power, currently taking place in Russia, open new opportunities for further development of this powerful interactive resource and create favourable prerequisites for paying much attention to copyright and allied rights issues, as well as preventing piracy in this field.

At present, the Intelcom's activity is concentrated on improvement of level of culture of all participants of legal relations in the field of intellectual property rights (both users and experts), protection of interests of research and industrial community, as well as artistic creators in the IPRs field at national and international levels, and establishment of mutual understanding and trust among the Russian and foreign participants of this process.

The specified goals are achieved by clarification of legal, organisational and economic procedures on protection of IPR in Russia, its use and prevention of unfair competition, with the help of:

• Provision of access to regularly updated legal and normative base of the Russian Federation in the field of protection and commercialisation of intellectual property with abstracts and thematic comments of leading experts in Russian and English;
• Rendering individual consultation support on a wide range of IPR-related issues;
• Conducting of on-line thematic conferences, seminars, forums, topics of which are selected by Intelcom's members;
• Identifying legal, organisational and economic problems preventing formation of effective, world standard relevant system in the field of IPR in Russia;
• Preparing of reviews, commentaries, recommendations and interpreting of terms on intellectual property issues;
• Monitoring of development of legislation, enforcement and practices of law applicability in the field of IPR;
• Informing about the best practices of intellectual rights protection, its use and preventing legal infringements;
• Making proposals on improvement of the Russian legal system in the field of intellectual property and its further harmonization in accordance with TRIPS provisions;
• Operative provision of the latest information on the most significant events in the field of IPR.