It is possible to protect your rights, but you need to use all the tools

Alexander Kurzin - Senior Partner at AXELLEGAL Attorneys at Law, told Femida.ua how to protect your intellectual property rights in an interview.

"In our country, when a law appears, everyone instead of
For some reason, they are trying to strictly enforce its norms
to find a way to avoid fulfilling it."

The basic laws that are currently in force and the mechanisms through settlement by appeals to courts, NIPA and law enforcement agencies are suitable for 95 % cases of clients to ensure quite effective protection of rights. For the client, the main thing is to find a competent specialist from the very beginning, preferably from the moment of registration. However, 95 % is not 100 %, sometimes the existing mechanisms do not allow solving the problem with which the client addressed and here I have to "create" and invent something new with which I can surprise the opponent, and as a result - protect the client's intellectual property rights.

The problem of IP rights protection - This is a problem that exists all over the world, and each country has to find its own way and apply all the necessary means to stop violations, taking into account its specifics.

The IP community remembers the days when Ukraine was excluded from the 301 List (a list of countries where the United States Trade Representative believes that intellectual property rights are being violated). Today, however, Ukraine is back on the list and on the list of priority countries in the 301 List.

It would be wrong to say that nothing is being done to combat IP rights infringement. We are doing it. Not as fast as our foreign partners demand from our country, though.

IP system reform has startedAmendments to the laws on the protection of industrial property rights and copyrights were adopted, and the National Institute of Intellectual Property was established. The need to continue reforms was emphasized by the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada after the appointment of the new Minister of Economy.

As part of the IP reform, the mechanisms of IP rights protection are being improved. Everyone is aware of cases of abuse of IP rights - the so-called patent trolling. This shameful phenomenon has become so widespread that it could not go unnoticed by the state.

As a result of the spread of patent trolling, bona fide entities spent a lot of time and resources fighting this phenomenon, and the state lost revenue in the form of tax payments. However, it was not always possible to protect their rights and interests in a timely manner by using the existing mechanisms of rights protection (appeals to courts, law enforcement agencies). The law adopted in July 2020 supplemented the set of remedies with one more - an appeal to the NOIP Appeals Chamber, which was vested with additional powers to combat the above abuses - an additional administrative method of canceling registrations, the so-called "post grant opposition" mechanism (invalidation of design certificates in the Appeals Chamber), was introduced.

Many interesting innovations are proposed in the field of copyright. Draft Law No. 5552 is currently under consideration in the Parliament. These are amendments to the Civil Code, the Commercial Code, the Code of Civil Procedure and many other laws aimed at protecting IP rights. We can also focus on the means of securing a claim in copyright infringement cases.

The draft law proposes the following changes:

• prohibition of manufacture, reproduction, sale, rental, importation into the customs territory of Ukraine and other use provided for by the law on copyright and related rights, as well as transportation, storage or possession for the purpose of putting into civil circulation copies of copyright and (or) related rights objects that are assumed to be pirated (counterfeit), and means of circumventing technological means of protection;

• seizure and confiscation of copies of copyright and (or) related rights objects, which are assumed to be pirated (counterfeit), means of circumventing technological protection, as well as materials and equipment used for their manufacture and reproduction;
• seizure and confiscation of evidence of actions that infringe or threaten to infringe (or confirm intentions to infringe) copyright and/or related rights.

Read the full text of the interview at link.