The bodies of justice, internal affairs, economic investigations and State revenue take measures to protect intellectual property rights.
In accordance with the Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated December 7, 2022 № 44, from January 1, 2023, unscheduled inspections conducted in accordance with the Entrepreneurial Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan have been resumed.
Thus, since the beginning of 2023, the territorial bodies of justice have issued 58 acts on the appointment of inspections (2022 - 1 inspection). According to the results of the inspections , it was revealed 56 offenses (2022 - 1 offense).
54 cases were initiated under Article 158 of the Administrative Code (2022 - 1 case), 46 persons were brought to administrative responsibility (2022 - 1 person). There are 7 cases pending before the court. The total amount of fines amounted to 3,654,210 tenge (2021 - 122 520 tenge).
11,828 units of counterfeit products totaling 23,705,255 tenge (2022 - 1 626 240 tenge) were seized from illegal trafficking.
The internal affairs bodies, within their competence, carry out tasks aimed at identifying and suppressing criminal offenses in the field of copyright and related rights.
In the first half of 2023, under Article 198 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan (violation of copyright and related rights), 3 materials on violations of copyright and related rights were registered, cases on which were terminated due to the absence of copyright holders.
Special attention is paid to the identification of these violations on the Internet. Since the beginning of the year, 113 sites have been identified, information about which was sent to the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan through the «Cybernadzor» system to block access of Kazakhstani users. Currently, 14 sites are blocked, the rest are under consideration.
As of July 1, 2023, the Customs Register of Intellectual Property Objects of state Revenue Bodies contains 836 trademarks (253 rightholders) for 8,473 items of goods.
On the basis of the Customs Register of Intellectual Property Objects for 6 months of 2023, the territorial state revenue authorities suspended the release of goods according to 363 declarations for goods with signs of violation of intellectual property rights for a total value of 18.4 million US dollars.
During the specified period, the state revenue authorities, based on the statements of the rightholders on suspended declarations for goods in respect of participants in foreign economic activity, compiled 2 administrative materials under Article 158 of the Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan «On Administrative Offenses» and the court confiscated 2466 kilograms of goods with subsequent destruction, as well as imposed a fine in the amount of 103500 tenge.
According to the results of the first half of 2023, the territorial divisions of financial monitoring bodies registered 3 pre–trial investigations on violations of intellectual property rights (Article 198 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan - 1, Article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan - 2 cases), of which 1 was discontinued and 2 in production.