Russia Centralizes State Power In The Field Of IP Rights

The Russian government has officially adopted a package of measures aimed at tightening state control for the observance of intellectual property rights in the country. This will take place through the introduction of a new system of IP management and implementation of other measures, according to recent statements of Oleg Fomichev, Russia’s deputy minister for economic development.

Oleg Fomichev commented: “According to the latest decision of the Russian government, the whole issue related with the management of intellectual property rights in Russia, including copyright protection, will be transferred under the jurisdiction of Russian Federal Agency for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks (Rospatent).”

The new legislation will come into force starting from 1 August of this year.

The Russian government believes that consolidation of the state control in the field of intellectual property is an acute need that will allow to better protect IP rights in Russia.

According to the Russian legislation, the Russian IP industry is currently regulated by several state bodies and agencies whose functions sometimes duplicate each other. This often brings confusion among the patent holders, which cannot efficiently protect their rights. However, there is a possibility that such a situation will change in the coming months.

To date, the development of state policy as well as legal regulation of intellectual property has been within the sphere of activities of the Russian Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education. However, as part of the planned measures, these functions will be transferred to Rospatent.

According to Lyudmila Novoselova, president of the Russian Court for intellectual property rights (the recently established specialised arbitration court, which considers disputes relating to the protection of intellectual property rights in Russia), in addition to centralization of state power in the field of IP, the Russian government has preliminarily approved the establishment of a single registry for intellectual property in the country, with the aim to make public the information on each object.

It is planned that such a register will be established on the basis of the Russian State Academy of Intellectual Property Rights, Russia’s leading higher education institution, which specialises in the training of specialists in the field of creation, management, legal protection and commercial use of intellectual property. The latter plans have already been confirmed by Ivan Bliznets, head of the Academy.

Among the other planned measures are designing an affordable, decent intellectual property assessment system that will provide an assessment of the objects of intellectual property, the number of which is steadily growing in Russia.

Finally, the Russian government plans to create conditions for the increase of the number of patent attorneys in Russia. According to Denis Manturov, Russia’s Minister of Industry and Trade, this is an acute need, as their current number in Russia remains insignificant.

According to Lybov Kiriy, deputy head of Rospatent, Russia currently experiences a shortage of patent attorneys, and the situation is aggravated by the fact that the majority of them are concentrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Part of the state plans is the establishment of trade unions of patent attorneys in different regions of the country, as well as granting of an authority to the All-Russian Association of Patent Attorneys (a public association, which unites the existing patent attorneys in the country) for the preparation, selection and validation of patent applications.

The Russian government believes that implementation of the declared measures is an acute need, as in recent years the number of patent applications filed at Rospatent has increased significantly and, according to analysts’ predictions, will continue to grow during the next several years.

This was reinforced by World Intellectual Property Organization Director General Francis Gurry, during his recent visit to Russia. He said Russia, along with some Asian nations, could become one of the world’s leading countries in terms of the number of patent applications as soon as by 2018-2019.

Gurry has also added that in recent years Russia has been faced with the increase of the number of copyright objects, hidden by commercial and other secrets, including those inventions whose value has not yet been identified. In this context, he also talked about the growing desire of the owners of such objects to conceal and protect the information, due to the increasing vulnerability of its storage.