• General Provisions
• Intellectual Property Rights
• Copyright
• Patent Rights
• Rights to Means of Identification of Legal Entities, Goods, Works, Services and Enterprises

The Fourth Part of the Civil Code of the RF as of December 18, 2006 is the codified regulatory act adopted in Russia in the area of the intellectual property.

Objects Under Protection

According to the Article 1225 of the Civil Code of the RF, the legal protection in Russia is granted in relation to the following results of the intellectual activities and the equal means of identification of legal entities, goods, works, services or enterprises:

• scientific, literary and art works;

• software created for the electronic data processing machines (hereinafter referred to as the "Computer(s)");

• data bases;

• performances and audio records, radio or television programmes broadcasted via airwaves or cable;

• inventions, utility models, industrial designs;

• selective breeding results;

• micro-chips layouts;

• trade secrets (know-how);

• means of identification of legal entities, goods, services: company names, trade and service marks, names of places of origin of goods, commercial names.

The following intellectual rights are recognized as an intellectual property:

• Exclusive right is a property right that provides the respective owner with an opportunity to control all of the types of use of his or her results of intellectual activity and to receive earnings from such use. According to the general rule, no other persons may use such results of intellectual activities or a means of identification without the owner's consent.

In the events provided for by the laws, the exclusive rights for the results of intellectual activities or the means of identification are recognized and protected provided that such results or means of identification have been registered with respective state bodies.

• Personal non-property rights are determined by the Civil Code of the RF as the rights to an authorship and the rights to a name. Such rights are inalienable and non-transferable. The waiver of such rights is void.

• Other rights (resale royalty rights, rights of access etc.).

License Agreements and Agreements Relating to Alienation of Exclusive Rights

If the owner of intellectual property rights wishes to transfer his rights to use the results of intellectual activity or the means of identification to other person in full or in part, he may enter into an agreement of alienation of exclusive right or a license agreement.

An agreement of alienation of exclusive rights or a license agreement shall be made in writing and be subject to state registration in the events where a result of intellectual activity or a means of identification are to be registered with the state bodies. The failure to make such agreements in writing or to register such agreements with respective state bodies will result in the nullity of such instruments.

Certain Types of Intellectual Rights

What is Protected?

The intellectual rights to scientific, literary and art works constitute copyrights. The objects of copyright also include the software created for the Computers, the protection of which is similar to that of literary works.

The copyright applies to works both made available to public or unrevealed, provided that all of such works have existed in certain hard copies. The copyright does not apply to ideas, concepts, principles, methods, processes, systems, manners, solutions to technical, managerial or other tasks, discoveries, facts, software programming languages.

What Rights Do Pertain to an Author?

An author of a certain work shall have the following rights:

1. exclusive right to that work;
2. right to authorship;
3. author's right to a name;
4. right of integrity;
5. right to make that work available to public.

Is Registration Required?

No registration or other formality shall be required with the purpose to create, exercise or protect the copyright. A person stated as an author on the original copy or a copy of a certain work shall be deemed to be the author of that work unless otherwise has been proved.

Period of Validity of Copyright

An exclusive copyright to a certain work shall remain in effect within the whole life of an author plus seventy years, which commence on January 1^st following the year of that author's death. Upon the expiration of the period of exclusivity of a copyright, such scientific, literary or art work, whether revealed or unrevealed to public, will become a public domain.

Liability for Breach of Copyright

Without prejudice to other applicable remedies to the extent as provided by laws, in the events of breach of an exclusive right for a certain work, the author or the respective copyright holder may claim, at his or her own discretion, that the offending party pay, instead of recovery for damages, the compensation representing the amounts as provided for in the legislation.

What is Protected?

The intellectual rights relating to inventions, utility models or industrial designs are subject to patent rights. The results of intellectual activities in scientific and engineering area meeting the requirements of the Civil Code of the RF relating to the inventions and the utility models, and the results of intellectual activities in the area of industrial design meeting the requirements of the Civil Code of the RF in respect of industrial designs, are recognized as the objects of the patent rights.

What rights do pertain to an author of an invention, utility model or an industrial design?

The exclusive right to an invention, utility model or an industrial design, which is, according to the general rule, recognized and protected only in the event of the state registration of respective invention, utility model or an industrial design, and the respective patent will be issued in respect of that invention, utility model or an industrial design by the federal executive body responsible for intellectual property matters (The Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trade Marks, the brief name for which is Rospatent (hereinafter referred to as – "Rospatent").

Right of authorship – i.e. the right to be recognized as the author of an invention, utility model or an industrial design, is inalienable and non-transferable. The waiver of such right is void.

Invention, Utility Model or Industrial Design Conditions of Patentability

In order that an invention, utility model or an industrial design could be protected by laws, these inventions, designs or models should comply with the conditions as provided for by the legislation. In particular, the common feature for the above-mentioned inventions, models or designs shall be, as a mandatory provision, their novelty.

Periods of Validity of Exclusive Rights for Inventions, Utility Models and Industrial Designs

The period of validity of an exclusive right for an invention, utility model or an industrial design with respective patent confirming that right, shall be calculated from the date of submission of preliminary application to Rospatent and shall remain valid within the following periods:

• twenty years – for inventions;

• ten years – for utility models;

• fifteen years – for industrial designs.

Company Name

A legal entity is carrying on its business activities under its own company name, which is set out in the constitutional documents and is included in the Uniform State Register of Legal Entities when that legal entity has been registered. The company name must comprise the form of its incorporation and its name, which cannot exclusively consist of the words determining the area of its activity.

A legal entity must have its full company name and may have an abbreviated name in Russian. It also may have its full and/or abbreviated company name in the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation and/or in the foreign languages.

A legal entity has an exclusive right to use its company name as a means of identification in any manner that is not prohibited by the laws. However, an entity cannot dispose of its company name on exclusive basis.

The exclusive right to a company name shall commence as from the date of the state registration of the legal entity and it shall terminate at the date, on which the respective company name has been excluded from the Uniform State Register of Legal Entities in connection with termination of existence of that legal entity or if that legal entity has changed its company name.

Trade and Service Marks

A trade mark, i.e. a sign that is used for identification of goods by legal entities or private entrepreneurs, shall be deemed to be a subject to exclusive right confirmed by a trade mark certificate. Verbal, graphic, volumetric or other marks, or the combinations of the latter, may be registered as trade marks. The respective rules relating to trade marks also apply to service marks, i.e. the signs that identify the works or services provided by the legal entities or private entrepreneurs.

The state registration of trade marks is carried out by Rospatent. A trade mark will be followed by a certificate, which confirms the exclusive right to that trade mark in relation to goods set out in the certificate.

Goods, labels, exterior packing of goods that bear an unlawful trade mark or other sign that is confusingly similar to the original trade mark, shall be deemed counterfeit. The legitimate owner of a trade mark may require the withdrawal of such goods from trading and their destruction on the account of a party at fault. The owner of a trade mark may require, at his discretion, that the party at fault will pay the compensation in the amounts as provided for in the legislation instead of remedying for losses.

The exclusive right to a trade mark remains in force within ten years as from the date, on which an application for its state registration has been submitted. The period of validity relating to the exclusive right to such trade mark may, from time to time and taking into account an unlimited number of times, be extended for ten years in accordance with respective application submitted by its owner.

Commercial Name

The persons who are carrying on business activities may use, for a purpose of identification of their trading, manufacturing or other enterprises, commercial names that differ from company names and are not subject to be set out in the constitutional documents nor included in the Uniform State Register of Legal Entities.

The owner shall have an exclusive right to use the commercial name as a means of identification of his enterprise in any manner that is not contradicting the laws.

It is not allowed to use a commercial name that may be confusing in relation to the ownership of an enterprise by a specific person.

The owner may grant other person the right to use his commercial name taking into account the procedure and the conditions as may be provided for by an agreement of lease of an enterprise or in respective agreement of commercial concession.

The exclusive right to a commercial name shall be terminated if the owner of that name does not use it on continuing basis during one year.