Your Excellency,

As you are aware, the Ukrainian Parliament has forwarded for your signature the Law of Ukraine "About changes to the Law of Ukraine 'On Advertising.'"

The Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights (CIPR) is writing to ask you to veto this piece of legislation. Article 6 of the proposed advertising law requires that foreign trademarks be "duplicated into Ukrainian" in any advertisement used in Ukraine.

As a multinational coalition of world's leading trademark owners, we invest considerable resources into protecting the names of our members' products, who are promoting consistency in the quality of products that bear their trademarks to consumers throughout the world. One manner in which our members protect their reputation is by registering and protecting their trademarks throughout the world, including Ukraine.

We believe that requiring translation of international trademarks that have been registered in Ukraine and in other parts of the world may create confusion regarding our members' products and dilute the value of their trademarks that we strive to protect. In addition, we believe that the proposed advertising legislation will violate other laws of Ukraine, namely the Trademark Law, Law on Entrepreneurship, and newly passed Civil and Commercial Codes of Ukraine; as well as international norms and conventions, including the Paris Convention of Protection of Industrial Rights (P.1 of Article 6 quinquies (A) and Article 6 bis (1)), which became effective in Ukraine on 25 December 1991. We are convinced that by protecting IP rights of multinational trademark owners, Ukraine will secure favorable conditions for foreign investments which, in turn, will lead to further development of free market economy in the process of Ukraine's integration into the global economic community, including prospective WTO accession.

As such, we respectfully request that you veto the proposed Law of Ukraine "About changes to the Law of Ukraine 'On Advertising.'"

Sincerely,

Myron Wasylyk,
CIPR representative in Ukraine