Monthly Archives: October 2016

Patent Pending

Patent filing in Russia – Provisional patent applications to be admitted soon

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The Russian Patent and Trademark Office (RUPTO) has proposed to institute provisional patent applications in our country. This will come in quite handy, especially for international applicants filing under the PCT procedure in Russia.

According to the RUPTO’s speaker, Dmitry Travnikov, provisional applications are intended to provide a disclosure of the invention but, at the same time, not subject to strict requirements, commonly applicable to regular patent applications.

The main purpose of provisional applications is to provide the applicant with a quick legal way to get a priority date. The applicant can then file a regular patent application within a certain time period after the initial priority date. The RUPTO proposes to set this term to 1 year.

Provisional applications are a widely used legal tool in many countries, for example in the US, and would be of great help for those filing patent applications in Russia, if accepted.

‘This idea was generally well received, especially by scientific and educational organizations which are interested in new easier ways to protect their achievements, since publishing any significant information in regard of the invention can later serve as an effective ground for a refuse’, said Travnikov.

Saint Basils Winter

A new IP mega authority to be created in Russia

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A new major initiative of the Russian Patent and Trademark Office (RUPTO), which is being discussed for some time now, concerns a transition of all intellectual property regulatory functions in Russia to a single authority.

Currently, legal IP matters in the country are collectively regulated by several government authorities, most importantly, the RUPTO (Rospatent), which operates as a regular patent office serving intellectual property registration functions. However, the general intellectual property politics and strategy are out of its scope, as well as work on the IP legislation in Russia. These functions are served by the Russian Ministry of Science and Education, Ministry of Economy, and Ministry of Culture. That said, the latter, for example, regulates copyrights in Russia.

‘We see that there are as much as four major ‘players’, not to mention other authorities serving certain regulatory functions: the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Healthcare, Ministry of Defense, Foreign Office, Federal Security Service, and so on’, said Dmitry Travnikov, the RUPTO’s speaker, during his interview on Friday. ‘For each of these authorities, intellectual property regulation-related matters and issues are only a relatively small part of their activities thus getting scarce attention. Hence, it has been proposed to gather all these functions to be served by one single authority’, said Travnikov.

It is supposed that functions of the new authority will encompass drafting strategic intellectual property policies and regulations to direct the course of the IP industry in our country, as well as all common topics such as examination of patent applications filed under the PCT procedure in Russia. According to Travnikov, all necessary documents have already been filed with the Russian government. ‘We hope that it will be accepted soon’, said the speaker.

Gagarin

Russian Intellectual Property Court to consider objection against an appeal by Yuri Gagarin’s daughter

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The Russian Intellectual Property Court (IPC) will consider objections against Elena Gagarina’s appeal filed with the Russian Patent and Trademark Office (RUPTO). Previously, the first cosmonaut’s daughter has successfully opposed a decision by the RUPTO to register a “Gagarinsky Mall” (Gagarin Mall) trademark in Russia. The hearings will be held on October, 17th.

The RUPTO’s decision had been annulled by the IPC on February 20th, 2016. The Patent Dispute Chamber had accepted Gagarina’s appeal then. She opposed a “Gagarinsky Mall” trademark which had been registered on 4th of August, 2011 by a company owning a mall of the same name at Gagarin square in Moscow.

The IPC‘s decision of July 27th is currently opposed by both Gagarina and the Russian Patent and Trademark Office. Gagarina has quoted a statute from the Russian Civil Code which states that designations similar to the name, pseudonym or a derivative thereof, of a person who is well-known in Russia cannot be registered as a trademark without a consent given by that person or his/her heir(s).

The Russian Patent Office had previously refused Gagarina’s opposition and stated that the trademark in question does not render an unambiguous association to Yuri Gagarin personally and contains no elements associated with space exploration, but rather serves as designation for a certain location. Gagarina had not agreed and took legal actions to challenge the RUPTO’s decision in several courts.

The Intellectual Property Court of the first instance had agreed with Gagarina and ruled her objection concerning the “Gagarinsky Mall” trademark registration in Russia to be re-considered by the RUPTO. However, a higher instance court had later annulled this ruling based on a legal expertise which questioned the consumer perception of the mark. The expertise has found that about 25% of poll participants associated the trademark with Yuri Gagarin thus being enough to consider the mark as having a strong association with him as a person. Based on that, the trademark has been annulled.

Meanwhile, Elena Gagarina still holds the ‘Yuri Gagarin’ trademark in Russia.