Russia's New War on Western Trade Marks

On 5 March 2022, Russia issued its Decree No. 299, which allows local companies or individuals to use the intellectual property rights owned by those from 'unfriendly countries' without consent and without paying any compensation. This potentially means that Russian companies can use registered intellectual property rights without a valid licence and will avoid having to pay damages for infringement in the courts, leaving these 'unfriendly countries' with essentially no intellectual property protection within the boundaries of Russia. This is of particular interest seeing as those 'unfriendly countries', in which there are currently 48, are defined as those who have issued sanctions against Russia in connection with the war in Ukraine – a definition that covers many western countries, including the UK, the US and the EU.

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