Trademark Legislation In Kazakhstan Has Been Amended Significantly

On June 20, 2018, the RK President signed the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 161-VI "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan Concerning the Improvement of Legislation in the Sphere of Intellectual Property" (hereinafter the "Law"). The Law was enacted on July 3, 2018 and, in particular, amends the regulation of trademarks in Kazakhstan. Please see below the following significant changes that will affect the procedure for the defense and protection of trademark rights.

Publication of information about applications: after conducting a preliminary examination, the expert organization1 will publish information on an application in the bulletin within 5 business days. This innovation will lead to an increase of the extent of awareness of potential applicants and rights holders about the designations submitted for examination and will also allow applicants to inform third parties of the priority of their applications in order to exclude the use of identical or confusingly similar designations by third parties. Cancellation of the two-stage system of consideration of trademark applications: preliminary and final decisions will be made by the expert organization and will no longer be subject to mandatory approval by the authorized body. The same change involved a reduction of the period of examination of the application for a trademark from 9 to 7 months. Right of the expert organization to revise the decision: the expert organization will have the right to revise the decision taken before the trademark is entered in the State Register following the identification of an application with an earlier priority. This situation will affect the rights of the applicants and will mean that even if there is a positive decision, the applicant cannot be sure that its trademark will be registered. Trademark rights are proved by certificates: right holders may now refer to certificates and attachments to them without requesting additional extracts from the State Register of Trademarks in order to confirm registration, amendment of registration, renewal, and etc. Date of creation of the exclusive right: the date of the creation of the exclusive right is determined - it is the registration date of the trademark. Before the adoption of this rule in practice, the issue of the date of the creation of the exclusive right was controversial. Simplification of the procedure for registration of contracts: examination of contracts is...

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