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.