New Tales of Old

The United States Trade Representative publishes every April annual reports on the IP situation in selected countries. The year 2025 has seen a new 2025 Special 301 Report.

In its preamble, the Trade Representatives thanks the contributors for providing information and lists many of them. Among those are government organizations, US embassies in various countries and interested stakeholders.

Given that there were many sources enabling the Trade Representative to collect unbiased information it would seem that the final report should be absolutely accurate and impeccable, all the more that it was also reviewed by the Special 301 Subcommittee of the interagency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

So, let us have a look at the chapter dedicated to Russia. In the beginning, the Report sets forth that “The overall intellectual property (IP) situation in Russia remains extremely challenging…” Well…, this statement has been copied from 2024 Special 301 Report, which had raised doubts at that time too.

So why this concern about the challenging situation in Russia? The Report proceeds to inform the readers that Russia targeted IP rights of foreign right holders. As an example, the Report states that Russia implemented Decree 299 in 2022, which allows Russian companies and individuals to avoid paying compensation to right holders for the use of inventions, utility models, and industrial designs.

There were so many contributors to the Report and, strangely, none of them informed the Trade Representative that Decree No 380 had canceled notorious Decree in the beginning of 2024. Besides, the statement implies that any Russian company or individual may at any time freely use any foreign invention without compensation, while in reality that Decree was used two times only during Covid-19 to provide a lifesaving drug to people first for remuneration to the patent owner and in 2022, lamentably, for free, and that for a limited span of time.

Further, there is a passage copied word for word from the Report of 2024:

“The lack of robust enforcement of IP rights is a persistent problem, compounded by burdensome court procedures. For example, the requirement that plaintiffs notify defendants a month in advance of instituting a civil cause of action allows defendants to liquidate their assets and thereby avoid liability for their infringement. Additionally, requiring foreign right holders to abide by strict documentation requirements, such as verification of corporate status, hinders their ability to bring civil actions. “

For some reason, it is alleged that notifying defendants one month in advance of court proceedings is detrimental to further actions by the IP owner. The situation is quite the opposite. When the IP owner discovers a case of infringement, he may document it, make test purchases, invite a notary to fix the infringement and only after that send a notification to the infringer. If the infringer stops the infringement (it happens often enough) the IP owner may be satisfied with that and save lots of money for court proceedings, or, if he wishes, he may initiate court proceedings and claim damages or compensation. If the infringer is stubborn and waives the notification the IP owner has all the trumps up his sleeve and may go to court fully equipped with evidence proving the infringement.

There are other similar copy pasted sections form the Report of 2024 distorting the real situation. Many people in many countries will read the Report and they will have a distorted picture of IP in Russia. In fact, inventions and trademarks are safely protected in Russia, there are many stakeholders filing in Russia their patent and trademark applications. The courts adequately protect foreign IP without drawing distinction between who is the owner of a particular IP. Even the antimonopoly body has become active lately in defending foreign IP rights so that the stakeholders should perceive the Report “cum grano salis”.