The President of the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO) made this statement at the plenary session of the XVII Scientific Readings in Memory of Professor S.N. Bratus “Ideas and Traditions of Russian Civil Law: Milestones of Centuries and New Horizons” at the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation.

Grigory Ivliev outlined to the legal scholars, participants of the conference, several key issues concerning statutory regulation and its improvement at the Eurasian level. He noted the necessity of clearly defining the legal status of the guidelines adopted both by Russian offices and the EAPO, which clarify the legal rules and methodological basis of the organization’s functioning. The EAPO President addressed this issue in a recent magazine publication “State and Law”. You can find a summary of this article on the website of the magazine (in Russian only).

Grigory Ivliev mentioned other important steps that the users of the Eurasian patent system from all over the world consider necessary. They include the necessity of creating the Eurasian system for trademark protection that was envisaged when the Eurasian Patent Organization was established and the Eurasian Patent Convention was signed in 1994.

The EAPO President emphasized that at that time a step-by-step introduction of intellectual property objects protected in the Eurasian space was discussed. However, currently only regional systems for the protection of inventions and industrial designs are functioning, although scientific, industrial and business communities seek the protection of both utility models and trademarks.

The EAPO President also stated that there is a demand for the creation of a Eurasian jurisdiction in the field of intellectual property. Due to its absence, industrial and business organizations in Eurasian countries have to incur serious additional costs and time expenditures to challenge Eurasian patents in each of the EAPO Member States and defend their interests. This hinders mutual investment activity, despite the enhancement of economic integration and the growth of trade turnover between the Eurasian states.

“As my colleague Mr. Drozdov [Igor Drozdov, Chief of the Executive Board] correctly pointed out, intellectual property is a field of law where the development of advanced technologies influences the adoption of new regulations. So, this is relevant not only for Russia but for the entire Eurasian space, where economic cooperation between states is intensifying, industrial cooperation and joint business projects are developing, but statutory regulation is not evolving properly. And we are not the only ones who notice this. Inventors, scientists, industrialists and entrepreneurs understand it very well,” summarized Grigory Ivliev.