Russia

The Russian Patent Office (Rospatent) has drafted and submitted to the government a package of new intellectual property laws, Rospatent Director General Alexander Korchagin announced July 49.

The relevant government entities will meet in September to discuss the proposed legislation and to prepare it for introduction in the State Duma - the lawmaking house of the Parliament - in October, Korchagin said. In the meantime, the government will be working closely with Duma committees in order to discuss the proposals and work through any potential obstacles to their adoption, he told a group of intellectual property experts during a speech in Washington.

The proposed changes are all mandated by Russia's existing treaty obligations and requirements for accession to the World Trade Organization, Korchagin added.

Korchagin and other representatives of government agencies and private intellectual property firms spoke at an intellectual property rights seminar at the offices of the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, hosted by the US-Russia Business Council, the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, and the private-public organization Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights.

The three most significant of the proposed intellectual property laws deal with copyright and neighboring rights, trademarks, and patents, Korchagin said in an interview after his speech.

Apart from the package of draft laws, Korchagin stated that the intellectual property rights protection regime in Russia had recently been strengthened by the fact that Rospatent had been given the authority to regulate copyrights, and that new regulations on well-known trademarksentered into effect in June.

New Attitude

The Rospatent officials' presentations elaborated upon an unexpected announcement June 27 by Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov at an intellectual property conference held in Moscow where the deputy prime minister first mentioned the plan to introduce new intellectual property legislation, according to Tom Thomson, senior vice president and managing director of the PBN Co., who also works with the Moscow office of the Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights.

Thomson said that the deputy prime minister's comments and the decision to send the director general of Rospatent to Washington reflected a new attitude on the part of the Russian government toward protecting intellectual property rights. Moscow-based Thomson underlined that "this time" the Russian government is "going pubic" with its intention to normalize Russia's intellectual property rights protection.

In addition, the deputy prime minister's June 27 comments contained the assertion that the Russian government would take steps to change the intellectual property regime so that companies - Russian and foreign" - could conduct business in Russia as they do in other countries, Thomson said.

The fact that the Russian government sent the director general of Rospatent to the United States - in his position as "chief regulator of the Russian IP regime" - to detail the proposed intellectual property legislation "is very significant," Thomson said.

Trademark Law to Combat Counterfeiting

Korchagin told the nearly 70 intellectual property seminar attendees that the proposed law on trademarks would change the registration system to take into account commercial utilization, arid would make it illegal for non-owners to register someone else's trademark in their own name.

The draft trademark law also contains a special chapter on well-known trademarks, which sets forth conditions and procedures for recognizing a trademark as well-known, according to Valentina Orlova, head of Rospatent's Intellectual Property Department. The amendments will lead to institutionalizing the list of well-known trademarks, Orlova said.

Additionally, Orlova said that a provision in the draft trademark law would permit cancellation of a trademark which was likely to confuse consumers as to a good; origin, even if it was a different type of good, and would allow for such practices to be designated as inappropriate competition.

The proposed law would also allow division of a trademark application, so that an applicant could register part of the trademark even if other parts were held up by other obstacles.

Orlova also emphasized that under the proposed legislation, if the actual owner of a trademark could prove use prior to that of someone who had successfully registered the trademark in Russia, the Russian registration could be invalidated.

Other Provisions

Korchagin told the group that the proposed patent amendments parallel Article 27 of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Under the proposed changes, the patent regime would discontinue use of one of the two current systems of administrative review and Russia would return to a system under which patent examination was started immediately upon receipt of an application, he indicated.

The protection of copyrights and neighboring rights would be taken more seriously' under the proposed law, Korchagin stated. In particular the idea of rights of remuneration for copyright holders was so little respected in the past as to be "practically non-existent,” he said.

Orlova said that the proposed legislation includes a draft law which is liquor-specific, in order to accommodate TRIPS obligations concerning geographical appellations. Under the proposed law, liquors with geographical names could not be registered.

Separately from the package of proposed intellectual property laws, Korchagin said that enforcement would be affected under President Vladimir Putin's plan to redraw Russia into seven federal districts. Under the re-districting plan, each new district would establish and maintain its own intellectual property rights enforcement office.

U.S. Welcomes Changes

The U.S. government was still in the process of re­viewing the proposed IP changes in early August, according to Alice Zalik, an attorney with the Legislative and International Affairs Office of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, but Korchagin's statements indicate that the changes - should go a long way" to encourage foreign and domestic businesses to invest in Russia.

Zalik mentioned changes in the copyright regime as a welcome example. "Changes in copyright and neighboring rights law ... to implement the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performers and Phonograms Treaty" would benefit "writers, artists, cinematographers, software producers, performers, and sound recording producers" from Russia and abroad, she said. "Other changes in copyright and neighboring rights law to provide protection for foreign works and sound recordings created before Russia granted copyright and neighboring protection - but still under protection in their country of origin - will be important steps in Russia's accession" to the World Trade Organization, Zalik underlined.

09/00