20 May 2016Jurisdiction reportsRiikka Palmos

IP reputation: Turning a corner

The reasons for the bad reputation may be historical, economical or cultural—or just unawareness of the Russian IP environment. For a while there has been a strong effort to improve this reputation. Several recent changes in legislation and an increase in awareness of IP rights have indeed made a difference.

The creation of the specialised IP Court a few years ago has remarkably improved the expertise and effectiveness of handling IP cases, and has led to harmonised decisions. The new practice of publishing of IP Court’s decisions has made it easier for IP owners to follow interesting decisions and court practice in general. All this has increased the awareness of the importance of IP protection in Russia.

Although it may sound surprising Russia constantly follows international IP trends and harmonises the legislation and regulations accordingly, sometimes even very intensively. Some recent positive changes will definitely improve the Russian reputation for IP.

Bad faith now recognised

The Law on Protection of Competition has been recently changed to include new regulations on unfair competition in the field of IP. The new articles prohibit the registration of IP rights in bad faith. Further, the law prohibits the illegal use of signs similar to trademarks, company names, trade names, etc, on packaging and labels, including use on the internet.

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