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At-a-glance: Rospatent 30-1 Berezhkovskaya nab., Moscow G-59, GSP-5, 123995, Russian Federation Tel: +7 499 240-01-74 Fax: +7 499 240-61-79 Email: rospatent@rupto.ru Website: www.rupto.ru Activity in the IP market in Russia increased through... [more]

Activity in the IP market in Russia increased through 2010 by about 10-15% on 2009, estimate IP practitioners, which is a slightly slower increase than the market was showing previously. The hottest topic in 2010 though was parallel imports. In 2009 a key case involving Porsche saw the courts seemingly give the benefit of the doubt to companies that imported goods without the consent of the brand holders. But one of the biggest cases of 2010 saw French company Evian win a case against parallel imports.

The issue has been exacerbated, as "due to the financial crisis counterfeiting became more widespread and a huge problem in Russia: we see no decrease of counterfeit goods in the market; on the contrary we see it increasing and requests from foreign rights holders rising," says a lawyer.

A number of legislative developments have taken place to try to address these inconsistencies and further strengthen holders' rights. The part of the Civil Code that concerns IP, Part IV, was amended in 2008 among other things to incorporate WTO rules. In 2010, Part IV was again being amended to further tighten regulations, however, says a partner, "this could go in either direction" in terms of benefiting brand owners. Another plan is for a Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The IP aspects of the union were agreed in 2010 but harmonising legislation has let the process drag on with no clear date for completion.

The Russian patent office (Rospat) has been taking a tougher stance against gaps in utility models that have been exploited by patent trawlers to the detriment of holders, most recently a Japanese car manufacturer. Practitioners that defend the system say that Russian legislation is as good as anywhere else and point to the fact that clients have more faith in the court system now as a result of lower political influence and greater education.

But issues still abound. "Enforcement agents are not qualified enough for IP protection and there is no uniform approach to protecting trade marks or uniform guideline for the police or Customs officials, so there are very few criminal processes against counterfeiters," says an attorney. "Frankly," says another, "we have good legislation but you go to a court and some of the judges do not understand matters of IP." To try and address this, in November 2010 the Supreme Court announced that there was to be a single centralised IP Court. Legislation has been passed to fast track the process and an IP court just outside Moscow is expected to be established by the end of 2011.