Amendments To Expect In Trademarks Legislation Of The Republic Of Kazakhstan In 2017

As part of the draft law On introducing amendments and supplements into several legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan (the "RK") on the issues of improvement of the legislation in the sphere of intellectual property (the "Draft Law") is expected introducing amendments into number of legal acts including laws on the trademarks.

The Draft Law suggests fundamental amendments in the sphere of intellectual property of the RK as a whole. Thus, the existing two level system of registration of the objects of intellectual property (the "IPO") will be replaced by the one level system. In other words, registration of the IPO currently is conducted by the State Enterprise on right of economic management "National Institute of Intellectual Property" of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan (the "Patent Office") with direct involvement of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan (the "Ministry"). Whereas, one level system avoids participation of the Ministry in the process of registration of the IPO which automatically results in abolishment of state fees to be paid in favor of the RK and shortening of the terms for registration of the IPO.

Below we present major amendments, in our opinion, which are expected in legislation on trademarks as a part of the Draft Law:

The right holder will be provided by the possibility to recover compensation for illegal use of his trademark. Currently such right is provided only for patent holders. Publication of the information on filed trademark applications on the web-site of the Patent Office. Currently information on filed trademark applications is not publicly available. Renewal issuance of a trademark certificate verifying the exclusive right for the trademark. It is known that the right for the trademark currently...