Draft Agreement on Unitary Trademark within Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia

The Eurasian Economic Commission (EAEC), a supranational body that has since January 1, 2012 supervised the integration processes between Kazakhstan, Russia, and Belarus within the Customs Union (CU) and the Single Economic Space (SES), has published a draft Agreement on Trademarks, Service Marks and Appellations of Origin in the Territory of the Single Economic Space (SES) between the CU members.

The draft agreement in Russian, dated December 20, 2012, can be found under the first point on this page of the EAEC’s website.

The agreement will enter into force once ratified by all CU members.

This draft agreement aims to further harmonize intellectual property rights protection in these three countries as foreseen in the Agreement on Unified Principles of Regulation in the Sphere of IP Rights Protection (Article 14), which entered into force on January 1, 2012.

The goal of the draft agreement is to create a ‘SES trademark’, which would coexist with national rights in a similar way CTMs coexist with national rights in the EU.

Under the Article 12 of the draft agreement, ‘SES trademarks’ are to be registered in a single trademark register, although there are no plans yet to set up a ‘SES trademark office’. The registration of ‘SES trademarks’ is to be made through the national IPOs of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.

According to Article 4 of the draft agreement, ‘SES trademark’ applications are to be filed before a national IPO of any SES member state. The applications may be filed in any of the local languages recognized by national regulations, but a Russian translation must always be provided. The Russian version will prevail in case of any discrepancies between other versions. All correspondence between the IPOs and the applicant will also be in Russian.

The term of protection for a ‘SES trademark’ will be 10 years from the application date.

The procedure will be further developed by an implementing regulation, called the Instruction, a draft of which has also been published by the EAEC.

Disputes over IP rights granted through the procedure foreseen in the draft agreement will be resolved by national courts or other authorized bodies in accordance with national regulations and international treaties, such as the agreement itself.

By: Ignacio Lazaro

For more information, please contact Ignacio Lazaro in our Belgium office.