The Government of the Russian Federation submitted draft No. 390361-8 to the State Duma, which proposes amendments to Art. 1248 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. In paragraph 2 of this article, there is a motion to add a paragraph stating that in case of a dispute being considered in an administrative procedure, the costs associated with such a procedure, shall be reimbursed to the party in whose favor the decision was made by the other party of the dispute.
According to Aleksey Zalesov, Managing Partner of «A.Zalesov & Partners» Patent & Law Firm, «the adoption of the proposed amendments will cause significant harm to the patent system of the Russian Federation, will lead to a sharp reduction in the practice of disputing patents in Rospatent, since in most of such disputes (up to 80 %) decisions are made in favor of monopolists-patent holders who have significant resources to protect their patent monopoly. As a result, small and medium-sized domestic enterprises will suffer foremost, for which challenging the validity of a patent is a chance to enter the market.
The full text of the article can be found on the website of the Attorney’s Newspaper (in Russian).