On 18 June 2024, the staff composition of the National Intellectual Property Authority (hereinafter – NIPA) Appeals Chamber was approved by the Order of the State Organization “Ukrainian National Office for Intellectual Property and Innovations” (hereinafter – UANIPIO) No. 93/2024, approved by the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine on 17 June 2024.

The Appeals Chamber consists of 40 IP specialists.

The Appeals Chamber resumption is a long-awaited event for the entire IP community, which strives promptly and effectively protect intellectual property rights. This was emphasized by Olena Orliuk, IP Office’s Director.

“We will work to ensure that the decisions of the Appeals Chamber are of the highest quality, so that the parties have as few grounds and reasons as possible to go to court. This will not only relieve the judicial system, but also save time and resources for applicants and complainants. In turn, we can guarantee a high level of professionalism and competence cases handling and processing, transparency and efficiency of procedures. As a result, everyone will benefit: The IP sphere, which will receive a reliable administrative protection mechanism, and the tool for the state to increase the investment attractiveness,” – noted Olena Orliuk.

“The event that everyone has been waiting for has finally happened. The staff composition of the Appeals Chamber has been approved, therefore organizational and legal measures necessary for the distribution of cases, the formation of panels and the commencement of consideration on the merits of appeal cases and cases that will be received are being taken,” – commented Vladyslav Bilotskyi, Deputy Director of the IP Office, and Chairman of the Appeals Chamber.

The first meeting will be announced by additional letters, as well as on official IP Office’s website. In addition, a monthly schedule of meetings will be published on our website (with constant updates).

Currently, there are 186 cases pending before the Appeals Chamber:

• 5 oppositions against decisions on applications for inventions;

• 57 oppositions against decisions on trademark applications, filed by 3 persons;

• 95 oppositions against decisions on trademark applications, filed by the applicants themselves;

• 5 appeals on invalidation of patents for inventions (utility models) in full or in part;

• 3 appeals on invalidation of industrial design patents in full;

• 21 applications for recognition of a trademark as well-known in Ukraine.

Key provisions of the new version of the Appeals Chamber Rules of Procedure:

• provides the possibility of processing objections to decisions on intellectual property rights obtaining under a simplified procedure;
• the possibility of mediation at any stage of the opposition or appeal processing was added;
• provides the possibility of creating a personal account in the UANIPIO’s Information and Communication System (ICS) for filing documents in electronic form with a qualified electronic signature;
• the requirements for the formation of the Appeals Chamber staff composition were supplemented;
• the possibility of storing video and audio recordings of video conferences in the ICS UANIPIO system was added;
• the procedure of intellectual property rights invalidation appeals processing was simplified;
• the requirements for a survey on trademark well-known in Ukraine have been simplified;
• regulated the procedure for exercising the powers of UANIPIO in case of establishing the fact of sanctions application.

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