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Offices & Countries / Russia / Trademarks
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Trademarks
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The matters connected with legal protection and use of trademarks/service marks are regulated in Russia by the Law of the Russian Federation ON TRADEMARKS, SERVICE MARKS AND APPELLATIONS OF ORIGIN OF GOODS of September 23, 1992 (with changes and amendments introduced by the Federal Law on December 11, 2002, in force as of December 27, 2002).A trademark and service mark (hereinafter referred to as "the trademark") are signs intended to individualize goods manufactured, works performed or services furnished (hereinafter referred to as "goods") by legal or natural persons. Verbal denominations, figurative or three-dimensional signs and other signs or combinations thereof may be registered as trademarks.
The Russian Patent and Trademark Office (referred below to as "the Russian PTO") adheres to the International Classification of Goods and Services, 8th edition, since 2002.
Application can be filed in respect to more than one Int'l class. An applicant may indicate as many classes as he wishes in the single application. The multi-class application is legally acceptable in Russia.
The whole registration procedure takes about 1-1,5 year.
There are two stages in the examination procedure in Russia: the formal examination and the substantive one. The formal examination results in the document of acceptance of an application into consideration and is issued approximately in 1-1,5 months from the filing date. The purpose of substantive examination is to determine whether the applied mark satisfies the requirements legally established or not, including checking if the applied mark is identical or similar to prior filed marks.
According to the new Russian trademark legislation and practice, there are now two types of the official actions in our country, which may be issued by the Examiner during the examination period: the Inquiry (a) and the Notification (b).
(a) a response to the Inquiry should be filed within two months following the date of receipt thereof. This term may be extended up to six months, subject to payment of the official fee in the amount of USD 20 per month and attorney charges in the amount of USD 60 per month, excluding the miscellaneous expenses.
(b) a response to the Notification should be filed within six months following the date of forwarding thereof to the applicant's representative. Please note that this term is not extensible.
If a decision of registration is issued, the applicant must pay a registration fee within two months after the receipt of the mentioned decision. Within a month after the payment of registration fee the trademark is to be recorded with the State Trademark Register (referred below to as the Register) and a Registration Certificate is granted in one consecutive month. The particulars concerning the trademark registration that have been recorded in the Register are published in the Official Bulletin after the registration of the trademark in the Register. As for the advertisement (publication) of the mark in the Official Bulletin for oppositions, the Russian Trademark Law does not prescribe that.
Under the accelerated procedure the terms for carrying out formal examination may be shortened to ten working days and the terms of substantive examination - to four months. The final stage (entering a trademark into the Register and the issue of a Certificate) may also be expedited to ten working days.
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