Kazakhstan Amends Intellectual Property Law

On March 02, 2007 the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan passed Law No. 237, amending the existing Intellectual Property Legislation. Specifically, the existing procedure for obtaining protection for inventions and industrial designs will be simplified and faster.

According to the new amendments, legal protection for inventions will be carried out through the filing of an application for innovation protection or through filing of an application for protection of an alternative process or invention with a possibility of mutual transformation.

As stated above, the new Law supports the acceleration of issuing patents. It also provides to patent owners a full protection of their technical devises and the possibility of obtaining timely licensing for technologies.

Several amendments were also introduced in Trademark Law.

• Conditions governing re-registration of the Trademark.

When the term of the trademark registration expires, that trademark may not be re-registered in the name of a person other than the previous owner for a period of one year following the date on which the term of the registration ended. This condition shall also apply where the trademark owner has renounced the trademark prior to the expiration of the registration term.

Previous legislation allowed a period of three years following the date on which the term of the registration ended.

• Non-use grace period

Any interested party may file with Kazpatent a request for the trademark registration cancellation where the trademark has not been used in the three years following the registration date or in the five years preceding the filing date of the cancellation request. The request may relate to all or part of the goods specified in the certificate of registration and shall be considered by the Board of Appeals within six months following the date of its receipt.

Previous legislation allowed cancellation requests when the trademark has not been used in the five years following the registration date.

For more information please contact Anastasia Tokar.