The issue of improving the Russian legislation in the field of intellectual property has long been on the agenda. Ever since the new versions of IP laws were adopted in 2002-2003 (the Russian Copyright law was amended in 2004) there was much discussion about further improvements. In fact, the amendments of three years ago did not solve all the problems though they did make some good patches over the legislative gaps. The work continued and by 2006 there were prepared numerous proposals for the patent and trade mark laws.

In parallel, a group of scientists took a different approach to the problem and devised a strategy for preparing a supplementary part to the Civil Code that would include all the special laws (patents, trade marks, etc). In so doing, the laws to be incorporated into the new Part 4 should in turn incorporate the amendments proposed for each special law. So far, there is no common opinion as to which amendments should be included and which should be left out or modified. Besides, since the groups of experts who worked on the amendments to the individual laws and the experts working on Part 4 of the Civil Code did not agree on all points there are differences in the proposed corpus of the individual laws and in Part 4 combining those laws.

In any case, the draft of Part 4 of the Civil Code was prepared and on July 18 the Russian President submitted it to the Russian Duma (Parliament) for consideration. Since then discussions for and against the draft have become even more heated. It is clear that the mere fact that the President sent the draft to the Duma signifies that it has a good chance of going through. This in turn triggered more opposition on the part of some experts. It should be noted that the draft, with all the long time that it took to prepare, suffers from inconsistencies. Considering the scope of the document it should have been prepared with the utmost attention to detail. Unfortunately there are some instances where one might say "in the right church but in the wrong pew" in respect to many provisions. According to many specialists the draft is open to criticism.

A formal objection to Part 4 may be that the Civil Code is an instrument of a higher level than a special law and it may be more difficult to amend it further. This point of view is however open to debate because there have been occasions in the past where individual sections of various codes were amended.

What carries more weight is the objection that each of the types of intellectual property is regulated by a separate international agreement, such as the World Copyright Convention (copyright), Paris Convention, Madrid Agreement (trade marks), Lisbon Agreement (appellations of origin), Paris Convention, PCT, EPC, Eurasian Patent Convention (patents). Hence, there is logic in preserving the relative national laws instead of putting all the laws in a single document.

More substantive critical remarks can be made in respect of material provisions. Thus, one of the provisions says that the means of individualization can be obtained and disposed of by one or several persons. This provision is characteristic of copyright; however, if applied to trade marks it is in contrast to the current Russian Trade Mark Law and to laws in other countries and international agreements (collective trade marks is a separate issue and is not considered here).

In the provision dealing with an invention, design or utility model the term "exclusive right" is understood to refer only to the right of the patent owner to use the invention, design or utility model and there is no right to forbid others to use the invention, etc. It is not even stated that nobody can use an invention, design or utility model without the permission of the patent owner.

Critics find many inaccuracies of this seriousness. There are also provisions which are inconsistent with the international agreements to which Russia is a party or is going to join.

Considering that the draft of the Civil Code Part 4 is being criticized on all fronts, in the wake of the presidential move an Expert Council has been set up under the aegis of the Chamber of Accounts of the Russian Federation. The Council is composed of the leading experts in IP field in Russia. The coming months are going to witness a new round of uncompromising discussions between proponents and opponents of Part 4 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. It is only hoped that those discussions will find a common vernacular and come to a solution that satisfies all the parties.