Government adopts three IP-related regulations

The Russian government has recently adopted three IP-related regulations.

On June 22 2015 the Ministry for Economic Development adopted the federal valuation standards for intangible assets and intellectual property (FSO No 11), describing methods and procedures for valuing IP rights and intangible assets, such as rights and obligations under agreements and contracts and commercial goodwill. FSO No 11 will come into force after several old valuation standards are repealed and the Ministry for Economic Development's Orders No 297-299 on the general principles of valuation enter into force.

Furthermore, the Rules on preparing, filing and examining applications for trademarks, service marks and collective marks came into force on August 31 2015. This document repeals the rules adopted in 2003 and introduces some novelties. For instance, Item 14 regulates the publication of application details in the official bulletin, Item 35 describes the type of evidence that may be used to establish the acquired distinctiveness of the non-protectable elements of a trademark, and Item 46 is devoted to letters of consent. This regulation also introduces certain new documents to be used in the registration procedure.

Finally, the Administrative Regulation of the Federal Service for Intellectual Property on providing state registration for a trademark, service mark and collective mark and issuing registration certificates and their duplicates came into force on September 12 2015. This regulation governs trademark application, examination and registration procedures, stating that the entire process should not take more than 18 months and two weeks, thus officially setting a timeframe for the first time in over 25 years.

Another IP-related novelty is that Mr Grigory Ivliev, former deputy minister of culture of the Russian Federation, was appointed as the new head of the Russian Intellectual Property Office (Rospatent) on July 31 2015.

Tatyana Kulikova, PETOŠEVIĆ, Moscow