Region: Russian Federation

Featured in IAM Life Sciences 2018

During recent years the number of patent infringement cases in the pharmaceutical field has increased significantly.

25 May 2018

The Russian market is investing rapidly in blockchain technology and fintech, with regulators largely having been forced to catch up. Accordingly, two draft bills regulating digital financial assets and alternative means of investment generation (crowdfunding) have been developed.

09 May 2018

The Constitutional Court has clarified Russia’s stance on national and regional exhaustion of rights. While it seems that infringement by reason of parallel importation is a constitutionally sound cause of action, it can now be asserted only in limited cases with remedies that are inconsequential.

07 March 2018

Over $43 billion-worth of counterfeit goods are sold in Russia each year – and this figure is escalating. The Internet and social media have transformed this sector by offering greater anonymity and less risk of prosecution for buyers and sellers alike.

28 February 2018

A new federal law aims to eliminate the illegal trafficking of medicines in Russia – including counterfeit, falsified and inferior medicines – by introducing mandatory identification marks on medicine packaging and a track and trace system for all medicines in circulation.

31 January 2018

The Moscow Commercial Court recently declared that a warning notice issued by the Federal Anti-monopoly Service against KYB Corporation was justifiable and would not be struck down. If the KYB decision is upheld and the Constitutional Court decision supports it, parallel imports may become entirely legal in Russia.

24 January 2018

The Russian Patent and Trademark Office recently announced that expedited examination will be available for all trademark applications. Since 2012, patent law has allowed accelerated examination through the Patent Prosecution Highway system, but no expedited procedure has been in place for trademarks.

22 November 2017

Rospatent's administrative fees were recently increased by Decree 1151. Some of the new fees for patent and trademark registration, maintenance and renewal are one and a half to two times higher than those set previously.

01 November 2017

Following Russia’s recent switch to a regional exhaustion regime, businesses are concerned that full or partial legalisation of parallel imports will lead to an increased volume of counterfeit goods entering the Russian market.

25 October 2017

A new federal law provides for the regulation of virtual private networks and other technologies that allow users to surf the Internet anonymously. However, it is unlikely that blocking anonymisers will successfully remove all illegal online content.

16 August 2017