Intellectual Property Rights Court
On December 6, 2011 the Federal Constitutional Law "On Amendments to the Federal Constitutional Law "On the Judicial System of the Russian Federation" and the Federal Constitutional Law "On Arbitration Courts in the Russian Federation" in connection with the establishment of the Intellectual Property Rights Court in the Arbitration Court System" was signed.
The Intellectual Property Rights Court (IP Court), a special court for the protection of intellectual property rights in the system of arbitration courts, is to be established not later than on 1 February 2013.
IP Court will consider disputes related to the protection of intellectual rights as the first instance court and the court of cassation instance.
The Court will review the following cases as the first instance court:
-
challenges of normative legal acts established by the federal executive authorities, involving an applicant’s rights and legal interests in the field of legal protection of intellectual property and means of individualization including patent rights and selection achievement rights, rights to technology of integrated circuits, rights to industrial know-how, rights to the means of individualization of legal entities, goods, works, services and businesses, rights to the use of results of intellectual activity in integrated technology;
-
disputes concerning the grant or termination of legal protection of intellectual property and similar means of individualization of legal entities, goods, works, services and businesses (except for copyright and related rights, topographies of integrated microcircuits), including:
-
-
challenges to non-normative acts, decisions and actions (including omissions) of the federal executive authority on intellectual property, the federal executive body responsible for selection achievements and their officials, as well as the federal executive bodies authorized by the Russian Government to review applications on patent issuance for secret inventions;
-
challenges to the decisions of the Federal Antitrust Service that classify the acquisition of exclusive rights to a legal entity’s individualization means, goods, services, works and enterprises as an act of unfair competition;
-
determination of patent holder;
-
the invalidation of a patent for invention, utility model, industrial design or selection achievement, decision to grant legal protection to a trademark, appellation of origin and granting exclusive rights to this appellation, unless otherwise provided by the federal law;
-
early termination of a trademark’s legal protection due to its non-use.
-
-
The Court will review these cases irrespective of whether the participants involved in the disputes are organizations, sole proprietors or individuals.
The Court as a court of cassation instance will review cases that have been considered at the first instance, and also cases on intellectual rights protection that were considered by arbitration courts of the Russian Federation regions at the first instance and by arbitration appeal courts.
The law provides for the use of a specialist in the arbitration process, if necessary. Specialists are persons with special knowledge in specific areas, who provide independent help to the Court in clarifying various circumstances of a case.
In addition applications on early termination of a trademark’s legal protection due to its non-use need to be submitted to an arbitration court and not the federal executive authority on intellectual property.