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Mr Atanas Kostov, patent attorney

Patent attorney and representative Atanas Kostov studied law in Plovdiv University "Paisii Hilendarski" and graduated in 1999 with Master degree. He is specializes in civil law. Intellectual property challenges him at the outset of his career. He is currently a consultant and author in the publishing house "Labour and Law", Sofia and in the magazines "Finances and Law", "Property and Law", "Society and Law" and "Intellectual Property" (official edition of the Patent Office, Sofia ), as mentioned in the editions were published over 30 articles in his field of intellectual property, particularly copyright, trademark and unfair competition.

Attorney Kostov is a patent representative and atorney to the Patent Office of Bulgaria in all industrial property objects: trademarks, patents (inventions), industrial designs, geographical indications, plant varieties and animal breeds.

At the end of 2005 Mr. Kostov was invited to the legislative task force committee of the National Assembly of Bulgaria under the guidance of Doctor of law, Mr. George Sarakinov in which they are made recent changes to the Law on Copyright and Related Rights. In the same year he became the author of electronic edition of publishing house "Labour and law" Sofia concerning copyright treaties. Currently lawyer Atanas Kostov is a member of the Advisory Board on matters relating to copyright and intellectual property to the Ministry of Culture.

In November 2010 Mr. Atanas Kostov issued his first book "Assumptions in copyright.Theory and Practice", published by Publishing House "Feneya". The book is aimed at giving practical guidance and tips not only for practitioners but also to all artists from various artistic professions (musicians, photographers, actors, artists, architects, computer specialists, etc.) who wish to obtain a more complete notion of the means of protecting their copyrights.

In May, 2011 Mr. Kostov publishing by "Ciela" his second book named "Opposition oftrademark." The book "Opposition of trademark" examines the new procedure for refusal on relative grounds, in force with the recent amendments to the Trademark Law (Law on Marks and Geographical Indications) from 10.03.2011. The book will be practically useful for wide range of lawyers, experts, working at the Patent Office, representatives of industrial property, commercial operators, students and citizens. Our aim is to explain various options for prevention, which gives the opposition of trademarks. Most of the materials in this book represent a synthesis of theory and practice, mostly of the OHIM (Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market) and the European Court of Justice, mainly due to lack of a national law for the time being. This approach was chosen to put light on the specifics of the procedure, not only nationally but also in Europe.

As a patent attorney Mr. Atanas Kostov leads one of the most interesting and controversial cases in Bulgaria related to copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial designs and unfair competition and that practically built modern jurisprudence in this area. Mr. Kostov is a Bulgarian consultant in the field of copyright to the Free software foundation Europe, on cases conserning open source systems under GPL (General public license) and the conclusion in this regard licensing agreements (contracts).