This was reported by Nurzhamal Ilyasova, Deputy Director of the Eurasian Economic Commission's Business Development Department, at the session “New Trends in Law Enforcement Practice to Combat Circulation of Counterfeit Products” during the Anti-Counterfeiting 2023 Forum. Among other things, she dwelled upon the outcomes of monitoring the law enforcement practice to protect the intellectual property rights in the Eurasian Economic Union countries last year.
According to Nurzhamal Ilyasova, the counterfeit goods detected in the EAEU in 2022 amounted to about 8.7 million units, which is twice as low as in 2021, being the lowest figure for the entire observation period since 2016. This reduction is mainly due to the falling indicators in Russia. “Along with that, different trends observed in the amount of counterfeit products detected are of special notice. We observe a 20-fold decrease in Armenia, a 3-fold decrease in Belarus, and a 2.2-fold decrease in Russia, while Kazakhstan showed a 3.3-fold increase and Kyrgyzstan experienced an 8-fold increase”, she emphasized.
The Deputy Director of the EEC Department believes that the EAEU laws governing the intellectual property have improved appreciably over the last two years. In particular, this regards the laws governing the institution of geographical indications and the liability for violating the intellectual property rights. However, the laws imposing criminal and administrative liability for violating intellectual property still need improvements.
In 2022, provisions on the administrative and criminal liability for the illegal use of trademarks were introduced in Armenia, and government bodies of Kyrgyzstan (in addition to Kyrgyzpatent) were empowered to impose administrative liability for violations of the intellectual property rights.
“At the EAEU level, we are developing new, digital measures of legal protection, in particular, the protection of intellectual property”, said Nurzhamal Ilyasova. “We are advancing a draft agreement to make the basis for combating violations of intellectual property rights on the Internet, creating an open search system for the information about the industrial property protected in the Union countries”.
She claimed the Commission to keep working on the gradual harmonization of the methods to record counterfeit products detected in the EAEU countries when moving across the customs border of the Union, and counterfeit products detected in the internal markets of the EAEU member states.
Participants in the discussion session arranged by the Eurasian Economic Commission touched upon the protection of intellectual property rights, customs regulation, online trading, IT methods used in intellectual property, and the issues of parallel imports.
The session attendees also included Almuaini Abdelrahman, Assistant Deputy Minister in charge of Intellectual Property of the UAE Ministry of Economy, Sholpan Abdreeva, Director of the Department for Intellectual Property Rights of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstanhttps://antikontrafact-forum.ru/forum-program - popup:abdreeva, Andrey Anikeev, representative of the Main Directorate for Combating Economic Crimes of the Criminal Police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus https://antikontrafact-forum.ru/forum-program - popup:anikeev, Tobias Bednarz, legal adviser for the Department of Dissemination of Knowledge about Intellectual Property of the World Intellectual Property Organization https://antikontrafact-forum.ru/forum-program - popup:bednarz, Anna Grevtsova, Managing Partner of the Intellectual Property Agency LLC (Russian Federation) https://antikontrafact-forum.ru/forum-program - popup:grivc, Anarbek Ismailov, Head of the Department of Implementation of Intellectual Property Rights of the Department of Law of the State Agency of Intellectual Property and Innovation under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic https://antikontrafact-forum.ru/forum-program - popup:ismailov, Karen Karapetyan, Director of the Academ Consult LLC (Republic of Armenia) https://antikontrafact-forum.ru/forum-program - popup:karapetyan, Zhanat Nurmagambetov, partner of the Bolotov and Partners Law Firm (Republic of Kazakhstan) https://antikontrafact-forum.ru/forum-program - popup:nurm, Valentin Rachkovsky, managing partner of the BelBrand Consult LLC (Republic of Belarus) https://antikontrafact-forum.ru/forum-program - popup:rachkovs, Saodat Shakirova, partner of the Arte Law Firm (Kyrgyz Republic) https://antikontrafact-forum.ru/forum-program - popup:shakirova, and Alexander Shikhranov, Head of the Department for Ensuring Control of Goods Containing Intellectual Property Objects of the Department of Trade Restrictions, Currency and Export Control of the Federal Customs Service https://antikontrafact-forum.ru/forum-program - popup:shihranov. Alexey Popovichev, the Executive Director of the RusBrand Association of Brand Manufacturers, played the moderator.
