Russia Adopts Three New IP-Related Regulations

The Russian government has recently adopted three IP-related regulations.

On June 22, 2015, the Ministry for Economic Development adopted the federal valuation standards for intangible assets and intellectual property (FSO No. 11), describing methods and procedures for valuing IP rights and intangible assets, such as the rights and obligations under agreements and contracts and commercial goodwill. FSO No. 11 will come into force after several old valuation standards are repealed and after Orders No. 297-299 of the Ministry for Economic Development, on the general principles of valuation, enter into force.

Furthermore, the Rules on preparing, filing and examining applications for trademarks, service marks and collective marks came into force on August 31, 2015. This document repeals the rules adopted in 2003 and introduces some novelties. For instance, item 14 regulates the publication of the application details in the official bulletin, item 35 describes the types of evidence that may be used to establish the acquired distinctive character of non-protectable elements of trademarks, and item 46 is devoted to the letters of consent. This regulation also introduces certain new documents used in the registration procedure.

Finally, the Administrative Regulation of the Federal Service for Intellectual Property on providing state registration of a trademark, service mark, and collective mark and issuing registration certificates and their duplicates came into force on September 12, 2015. This regulation governs trademark application, examination and registration procedures, stating that the entire process should not take more than 18 months and 2 weeks, thus officially setting the time frame for the first time in over 25 years.

Another IP-related novelty is that Mr. Grigory Ivliev, former Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation, was appointed as the new head of the Russian IPO (Rospatent) on July 31, 2015.

By: Tatyana Kulikova

For more information, please contact Tatyana Kulikova at our Russia office.