On clarification of the provisions of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation on liability for the illegal use of a geographical indication and name of the place of origin of goods

On August 03, 2025, Federal Law No. 235-FZ of July 23, 2025 «On Amending Article 1350 of Part Four of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation» comes into force.

On July 28, 2025, amendments to paragraph 3 of Article 1537 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, provided for by Federal Law No. 230-FZ, came into force, according to which liability for the use of the protection marks «name of the place of origin of goods» was expanded, and liability for the use of the protection marks «geographical indication» was established.

On July 03, 2025, the Supreme Court published Ruling, in which it indicated whether the use of someone else's trademark in the address bar of a website is considered the use of a designation for the individualization of goods.

Irina Ozolina commented on the Ruling and its significancy for the practice.

The court of appeal upheld the court's decision on the illegality of the FAS decision based on the results of an unscheduled inspection of the legislation of the Russian Federation on the c contracting procurement field.

A Plaintiff filed a claim for early termination of the the trademark of the client of «A.Zalesov & Partners», registered in relation to goods of classes 01 and 05 of the International Classification of Goods and Services, due to non-use. We managed to prove the Plaintiff's lack of interest in early termination of the trademark in relation to goods of both classes, as well as the wide recognition of the client's trademark, as a result of which the Russian IP Court ruled to refuse to satisfy the claims in full.

«A.Zalesov & Partners» challenged the decision of the FAS of Russia to recognize the client's actions on the introduction of a medicinal product with the INN «Osimertinib» into civil circulation as unfair competition and infringing article 14.5 of the Competition Law, as well as the order to transfer income in the amount of 566,951,059 rubles to the federal budget and achieved cancellation thereof.