Russia: Reading into the latest ‘resolutions’ document
Russia is not a common law country. Every court abides by the law and is guided by its understanding of the law. In practice, however, opposing judgments in similar situations do occasionally happen.
These cases, although rare, create uncertainty in the application of the law, so the judiciary worked out a remedy to bring judicial practice in line.
As time goes on and court judgments pile up, so does material for analysis. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation monitors what is going on in courts all over the country and periodically issues so-called “resolutions”.
The resolutions analyse judicial practice of various courts and work out instructions in respect of categories of cases. These instructions are obligatory for all the courts and should be followed without fail.
Resolution on IP
The last resolution, titled “Application of Part IV of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation” was issued in April 2019. It is a 90-page document analysing many IP judgments and setting the legal positions of the Supreme Court. This resolution was issued ten years after the last similar document was published.
The current resolution analysed judicial practice of many years and sought to work out a uniform practice of courts. There have been cases when in much the same circumstances different courts issued different or opposing judgments. To streamline practice, the resolution does not simply review similar cases—it issues direct instructions how this or that case should be solved.
The law cannot cover every situation in life. For example, early termination of a trademark due to non-use is a commonplace occurrence. Normally, this case would be considered by the IP court. But what happens if the trademark owner is under bankruptcy proceedings? The law gives no answer. The resolution instructs that such cases should be considered within the framework of bankruptcy proceedings by the regular commercial court.
