Valentina Orlova, Head of the Intellectual Property and Trademarks Practice at Pepeliaev Group, participated in the first meeting of the working group that is preparing a draft law amending the Russian Civil Code. The changes will improve the legal regulation of the appellations of origin of goods and supplement the list of the protected IP items with a new item called a ‘geographical indication’.
The session was held on 27 February and was chaired by Liliya Gumerova, the First Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Scientific, Educational, and Cultural Matters of the Federation Council, and Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Intellectual Property Matters at the Federation Council. The working group consists of members of the Federation Council, the State Duma, representatives of the Ministry for Economic Development, the Ministry for Industry and Trade and the Ministry for Agriculture, regional authorities, representatives of the IP Court, the Alekseev Presidential Private Law Research Centre, ROSNANO, and also various law firms.
Lyubov Kiriy, Head of Rospatent, announced the idea behind the draft law, its main provisions, and the reasons that caused it to be drawn up. For example, she informed the meeting that in a number of jurisdictions it is possible to legally protect both the geographical indications and appellations of origin of goods, each of them being linked to a specific geographical location. It was noted that it was necessary to develop the means of identification for regional products, thus promoting the awareness of such products.
Valentina Orlova as part of the discussion of the draft law expressed her opinion that the suggested draft should be additionally worked through. Specifically, the need was mentioned to develop provisions regulating the interrelation of appellations of origin of goods and geographical indications in context of their legal protection and in the context of transitional provisions (introducing the new item, geographical indications). It was suggested that the set of criteria for their protection be defined more clearly. Doubt was expressed as to the possibility for geographical indications to be registered in the name of an association of persons involved only in the sale of the goods labelled with a geographical indication. Keeping in view the existing problems in the administration of law with regard to the termination of the legal protection of appellations of origin and having supported the provision of the draft law on the possibility for protection to be terminated upon the initiative of competent authorities Valentina Orlova proposed to supplement the list of grounds and not be limited to the identified cases in which goods lose their special features marked by appellations of origin.
In conclusion Liliya Gumerova addressed the members of the working group, requesting them to bring forward their suggestions for supplementing/amending the draft law.