Region: Russian Federation

The new Law on Mirror Websites was recently adopted by the State <i>Duma</i>. The law obliges search engines such as Google or Yandex, on receiving a request from Roskomnadzor, to withhold information about the domain name of an infringing website and any references to mirror websites of  permanently blocked websites.

02 August 2017

A year after the pre-trial serving of a would-be defendant with a demand letter became mandatory in Russia, the procedure is facing further changes in relation to IP disputes. A new federal law clarified the range of IP disputes where sending a demand letter to the potential defendant is a mandatory pre-trial procedure.

19 July 2017

The controversial draft law on online cinemas recently came into force. The law amends the existing federal law on information, information technologies and protection of information and is directed at video-on-demand services.

12 July 2017

Roskomnadzor is the state executive body for supervising all media in Russia, including what can appear on the Internet. The main question among many online companies operating in Russia is why certain websites are being blocked.

28 June 2017

As in most European countries – where the respective national patent system coexists with a wider European system – the national patent system in Russia coexists with the Eurasian patent system, which comprises eight contracting states. The…

13 June 2017

The escalation of sanctions against Russian IT companies – including Russia's top search engine Yandex – follows a number of recent initiatives from the Ukrainian authorities aimed at limiting access of Russian-controlled entities to critical Ukrainian cybersecurity infrastructure.

07 June 2017

One week after access to WeChat, China's most popular social media app, was cut off in Russia for failure to comply with recently introduced information laws, the app is now available and back online. It is not the first time that a web-based service has been blocked in Russia.

24 May 2017

President Putin has signed a law ratifying the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs. The agreement is designed to facilitate the protection of industrial designs in multiple countries or regions by allowing applicants to file a single application in a single language.

26 April 2017

At a recent International Trade Association in Russia roundtable event on parallel imports and IP rights, Deputy Head of the Eurasian Economic Commission Sergei Shurygin confirmed that the Eurasian Economic Union intends to move forward with plans to introduce a new Eurasian regional trademark.

12 April 2017

Until recently, while customs officials did not seize parallel imports, they did detain them for at least 10 days – which was enough time for the brand owner to file an infringement action and request a preliminary injunction in the Commercial Court. However, the new 30-day pre-litigation rule means it is no longer possible to freeze parallel imports at the border.

08 February 2017