This was announced by Grigory Ivliev, President of the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO), at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum. He spoke at the session “New Regional Forms of Intellectual Property in Eurasia: a Unified Eurasian Trademark and Utility Model”.

The EAPO President noted that economic integration and cooperation to improve the welfare of CIS citizens are among the priorities of the Russian presidency in the CIS for 2024. Intellectual property is of special importance. IP-related issues are on the agenda of all integration platforms, such as the Union State, EAEU, EAPO, and CIS.

“The past two years have shown how important Russia’s cooperation with its nearest neighbors is. Russian entrepreneurs have faced challenging conditions, such as unilateral illegitimate measures, restructuring of business activities, logistic chains, and the search for new partners and suppliers. I do not hesitate to say that Eurasian economic integration helped mitigate the radical modifications in business environment,” Grigory Ivliev said.

Grigory Ivliev also mentioned that, at the same time, the Eurasian patent system should be expanded for further development. Entrepreneurs and inventors should have a full set of tools to protect and enforce their rights to work in the Eurasian space. This requiers the creation of new forms of intellectual property, such as trademarks and utility models.

The heads of national patent offices, academics and patent attorneys who attended the session did not identify any impediments to the introduction of new regional IP forms. They noted that the free movement of goods was still impeded by the territorial nature of IP rights.

Vladimir Ryabovolov, Director General of the National Center of Intellectual Property of Belarus, stated that there was an increase in patenting of utility models around the world, according to WIPO data. In 2022, the number of applications increased by 2.9%. Over the year, more than 3 million of them were filed worldwide. The total volume of utility model patents in force in the world increased by more than 16% and reached more than 11 million.

“The introduction of the Eurasian system for legal protection of utility models will simplify the process of entering the markets in the countries of the region. It will facilitate the promotion of goods, increase trade turnover between the countries, and, as a result, positively affect the economies of the EAPO Member States,” Vladimir Ryabovolov said.

Olga Tereshchenko, Vice-Rector of RSAIP, stated that specialists of RSAIP didn’t identify any legal and economic vital impediments to the introduction of the “Eurasian trademark.”

“We have thoroughly scrutinized all existing regional systems and national legislations in eight states. We have not found any disadvantages. Trademarks stand apart; they are a marketing asset. Business is first and foremost interested in them. And that demand comes from business. The more convenient it is for business, the more actively the economies of countries develop.The advantage of the system is the single-window approach. It is convenient and simple. We apply to one office and receive one reply. This is the transparency of the system,” Olga Tereshchenko noted.

Valery Medvedev, Managing partner of Gorodissky & Partners law firm, stated that trademarks were a priority among new intellectual property forms.

“I would fully support the prioritization of the introduction of new IP objects. First of all, this is a trademark. According to the statistics, trademarks exceed tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of registrations per year in the Russian Federation, Belarus, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and other Eurasian countries. This object is a popular one,” Medvedev said.

President of the Assembly of Eurasian Patent Attorneys Eduard Shablin stated that business was interested in protecting the rights to trademarks and utility models.

“Being representatives of the professional community and the authorities, we should provide this mechanism to businesses. We will elaborate on all the issues in cooperation with the Eurasian Patent Office and the Assembly of Eurasian Patent Attorneys,” Shablin said.

The participants noted that there was a demand from business for new IP forms. Integration has the potential to stabilize intellectual property law, which is vulnerable given the current global trends.

The general sponsor of EAPO events at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum is Gazprombank. Official sponsors: Gorodissky & Partners Law Firm, Patentika Law Firm. Sponsor: Zuikov & Partners Law Firm.