Press release

On June 11 of this year,at the plenary session of the Senate of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the second reading the Law was passed «On introducing amendments and additions to some legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the improvement of legislation in the field of intellectual property».

The law is aimed at improving legislation,simplification of the procedure for registration of objects,elimination of legal gaps, reduction of administrative barriers in the field of intellectual property protection.

For this purpose, the Law provides for the transition to a single-level system for registration of intellectual property objects through the delegation of an expert organization (Republican State Enterprise "National Institute of Intellectual Property") powers of the Ministry of Justice for registration of rights to objects of intellectual property.This simplifies the procedure and registration time is shortened,electronic registration format is introduced.In addition, an institution of compensation is introduced instead of compensation for damage in violation of trademark rights.It is proposed to determine the amount of compensation based on the market value of homogeneous (original) goods,which the rightholder has the right to demand in exchange for compensation for damage in cases of violation of his rights, the amount of which is set by the court.

At the same time, counterfeit goods will be subject to destruction, and original, if they meet the requirements of legislation on consumer protection,can be transferred in the public interest (children's homes, invalids and so on) with the mandatory destruction of the trademark, both from the goods and from the packaging.Mandatory publication of applications for trademarks is introduced from the moment they are received by the expert organization.

Also, expanded,the list of disputes on registration of objects of intellectual property,subject to pre-trial consideration in the Appeals Council of the Ministry of Justice in terms of empowering  to review disputes regarding the similarity of trade names and trademarks.