Kazakhstan Drafting Amendments To IP Laws

Kazakhstan's Ministry of Justice has drafted a new law amending and supplementing a number of intellectual property laws and regulations, with an aim to make Kazakhstan's IP legislation fully in line with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) standards in the area of IP protection and with the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks.

The Ministry of Justice has recently held public hearings on the draft law, which aims to introduce are the following:

A single-level system for the registration of IP rights, i.e. all registrations to be handled by the National Institute of Intellectual Property (NIIP), as opposed to the current two-level system where both the NIIP and the department for IP-related rights within the Ministry of Justice are involved; An appeal board to be created within the NIIP to handle potential appeals against NIIP's decisions, instead of going directly to court; Stronger enforcement measures, including fair compensation to IP rights owners; Simplified recording of license, sublicense and assignment agreements - currently, four originals of the agreement are needed for the recordal, but according to the draft law, only a certified copy or extract of the agreement will be required; Harmonization of the...