Ukraine News Archives
April 10, 2008
Ukraine Joins WTO
On Feb. 5, 2008, the World Trade Organization and Ukraine signed an agreement on Ukraine’s entry into the WTO.
Ukraine must ratify the accession agreement no later than July 4, 2008. 30 days after ratification, Ukraine then becomes a full member of the WTO.
Ukraine President Victor Yushchenko called the WTO membership “a decisive milestone in the development of our economy.”
For more information, please contact Judith Goeke.
November 23, 2005
Ukraine Considering Amendments to Intellectual Property Law
Ukrainian authorities recently considered various amendments to its intellectual property laws. Among other things, they considered amending the definition of the term “applicant”, as outlined in the Law on the Protection of Rights to Trademarks, Geographical Indications and Firm Names.
One of the proposals included the requirement for the applicant to carry out an “economic activity” according to the Ukrainian legislation.
This option is not likely to be adopted by the Ukrainian authorities as it would be contrary to Article 3 (7) of the Trademark Law Treaty (WIPO, 1994), to which Ukraine is a contracting party, which reads:
“In particular, the following may not be required in respect of the application throughout its pendency:
(ii) an indication of the applicant’s carrying on of an industrial or commercial activity, as well as the furnishing of evidence to that effect;
(iii) an indication of the applicant’s carrying on of an activity corresponding to the goods and/or services listed in the application, as well as the furnishing of evidence to that effect”.
Among other issues discussed were the genuine use of registered trademarks and prevention of bad faith registrations.
For more information, please contact our Ukraine representative.
July 13, 2005
Changes in Ukraine IP Legislation
A number of amendments to the current IP legislation in Ukraine are under consideration by the competent legislative bodies of Ukraine.
Accordingly, on July 1, 2005, the State Department of Intellectual Property of Ukraine published on its website drafts for changes to five IP laws:
The Law on Protection of Rights to Trademarks, Geographical Origins and Commercial Names;
The Law on Protection of Rights to Topographies of Integrated Circuits;
The Law on Protection of Rights to Trademarks;
The Law on Protection of Copyright and Related Rights;
The Law on Protection of Rights to Patents and Utility Models.
The draft laws seek to further regulate the conditions for acquiring IP rights, procedural issues, termination and renewal of rights, and IP rights protection.
For more information, please contact our Ukraine representative.
February 09, 2005
New Official Fees in Ukraine
In December 2004 the Ukrainian Government adopted a Decree, which introduced new official fees in the field of intellectual property. The decree came into force on February 5, 2005.
New fees have been established for recordal of changes against pending applications, as well as for the publication of grant for trademarks, patents, industrial designs and utility models.
Regarding trademark matters, the amendments include an additional fee for applications in colour. The basic filing and renewal fees will cover only one class of goods/services. Therefore, an extra fee is foreseen for each additional class in excess of one.
For substantive examination of patents, a lower discount is foreseen if a search report is available (30% instead of 50%).
With respect to the annuities, the 1st and 2nd ones shall not be covered by the filing fee for patents and industrial designs.
Official fees for foreign applicants have been fixed in Euros.
For more information on the new official fees in Ukraine, please contact our Ukraine representative.
January 14, 2005
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PARTICULAR NEWS PIECE BELOW, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN JANUARY 2005, IS NO LONGER VALID. PLEASE CONTACT US FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION REGARDING THE INVALIDITY OF THIS LAW. INVALIDITY NOTED ON THIS WEBSITE IN JUNE 2005.
Pharmaceutical trademarks in Ukraine must now be written in Cyrillic letters on the drugs and/or the packaging, whether or not the trademark is written in Latin script.
Although using an unregistered Cyrillic mark is widely considered as use of a registered mark in Latin, proving use can be time consuming and expensive, and may involve court proceedings if the proprietor is challenged.
Accordingly, to avoid potential difficulties and differences in phonetics and spelling, we recommend pharmaceutical trademarks to be registered in Cyrillic as well as Latin script.
For more information on pharmaceutical trademarks in Ukraine, please contact our Ukraine representative.