New Ukraine Advertising Law Signed

September 16, 2003

As a follow-up to the CIPR Alert that you received last week, the CIPR Ukraine team reports that the draft law "On Advertising" was signed into law by President Leonid Kuchma on September 15, 2003. The new legislation will become effective after its official publication.

While the legislation appears to be progressive, Article 6 of the law requires foreign trademarks to be "duplicated into Ukrainian" in any advertisement used in Ukraine. This is a serious concern for CIPR members and all trademark owners operating in the Ukrainian market. The term "duplication" can be interpreted either as translation or transliteration, which will create confusion among trademark owners. The new law directly violates other laws of Ukraine, namely the Trademark Law, the Law on Entrepreneurship and the newly passed Civil and Commercial codes.

CIPR only received last minute notice of the controversial provision regarding the trademarks because of the highly irregular way in which Article 6 was added to the law following its passage by Ukraine's parliament, The Supreme Rada.

The CIPR Ukraine team is currently studying its options to achieve the repeal of this provision as soon as possible.

CIPR would like to thank its members and allies for your last-minute communications with the Government of Ukraine in attempting to prevent this bill from becoming law. We will keep you informed of our plans and hope you will join us in advocating for its repeal.

Best regards,
CIPR Ukraine Representative
Myron Wasylyk