On July 26, 2019, Law No. 230-FZ On Amendments to Part Four of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and Articles 1 and 23.1 of the Federal Law On State Regulation of the Production and Circulation of Ethanol, Alcoholic and Alcohol-Containing Products and on the Limitation of Alcoholic Products Consumption (Drinking) was published. The law will enter into force on July 27, 2020.

A diplomatic conference was celebrated in Nur-Sultan (the capital of Kazakhstan) on September 9, 2018. It adopted a Protocol on Protection of Industrial Designs  to the Eurasian Patent Convention. Plenipotentiary representatives of all eight countries, parties to the Convention, took part in the Conference.

On July 18, 2019, the Duma passed the bill on geographical indications (GI) in its final reading. This is a new and long awaited IP subject matter. Relevant provisions are sandwiched by the side of appellations of origin (AO) in the same section. It is also a means of individualization and denotes the goods whose characteristics are related to their geographical origin. It differs from AO in that the latter is used for the goods the properties of which “exclusively or mainly” are determined by their geographical origin, i.e. by natural or human resources of a specific geographical location. The requirements for the goods for which the geographical indication will be used are related to the geographical location to a “certain large extent” only.

On February 13, 2018 the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation announced its decision with respect to parallel import cases. The Court confirmed the principle of regional exhaustion of rights in Russia as part of the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia) which means that parallel import in Russia is prohibited.

On September 23rd, 2017 the Government of the Russian Federation has announced increase of patent, design and trademark fees and annuities. The increase is global, both due to raised amounts of all fees and changed structure of filing fees with lower number of claims covered by one filing fee.