The laws came into force, aimed at creating a specialized court on intellectual rights

On December 8, 2011, the laws came into force, aimed at creating a specialized court on intellectual rights:

— The Federal Constitutional Law of December 6, 2011, No. 4-FKZ «On amendments to the Federal Constitutional Law «On the judicial system of the Russian Federation and the Federal Constitutional Law on Arbitrazh Courts in the Russian Federation in connection with the establishment within the Arbitrazh Court system the Court on intellectual property rights»; and
-The Federal Law of December 8, 2011 No. 422-FZ «On introducing changes to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation in connection with the establishment within the system of the arbitrazh courts of the Court on intellectual property rights» pravo.gov.ru

In the arbitrazh courts of Russia, it is created a specialized court of arbitrazh — the Court on intellectual property rights (further — Court), which will consider cases in disputes involving the protection of the intellectual rights, as a court of first appearance and a court of cassation.
The Court should be formed not later than February 1, 2013. The decision to start its activities and place of the permanent stay will be taken by the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitrazh Court of the Russian Federation, and it will advise on it officially.

The Federal Constitutional Law defines a place of the Court in the arbitrazh proceedings, its powers, categories of cases, assigned to the jurisdiction of the Court, the form of establishing and performing the Court’s activities, and the manner of hearing of those cases in the first and cassation appearance; it identifies the structure of the Court, the modus operandi and powers of the presidency and judicial panels, of the President of the Court and his or her deputies. The Federal Law contains, inter alia, provisions concerning details about selection of candidates for judges to the Court.

The analysis of the laws has shown that establishing of the Court has as a consequence a number of changes in existing procedures for the protection of intellectual property rights and of disputes in this area.

For example, to the competence of the Arbitrazh Court, it shall be transferred the deliberation of the claims on earlier termination of legal protection of a trademark because of its non-use; before the Chamber for Patent Disputes has been considering such disputes.

There is increasing the special jurisdiction over cases for the arbitrazh courts by endorsing to jurisdiction over cases of the arbitrazh courts intellectual property disputes involving organizations that are carrying out joint management of copyright and neighboring rights.

Among the novels, it may be noted that to the arbitrazh procedure it is inserted the new procedural person — a specialist (a person having necessary knowledge of the specialty, exercising consultations on matters concerning the case of). The specialist will be brought to the cases in order to obtain clarification, consultations and to seek professional views of persons, with theoretical and practical knowledge on the merits being resolved by the Arbitrazh Court. Clarifications and consultations will be provided by the specialist in oral form.