Bringing Ukrainian legislation into line with EU legislation and improving the protection of the interests of individuals during martial law. Currently, these are the priorities of the legal work of the IP office, which were emphasized by the adviser to the director of the IP office, Mykola Pototsky, during a meeting with representatives of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine.

“First of all, updating information about EU legal acts that require implementation into our legislation, revision of by-laws on the examination of applications for intellectual property objects, taking into account EU acts. This is one of the work vectors. The next priority vector is the development of proposals for the law on the protection of the interests of individuals during martial law, as well as the regulation of relations regarding the objects connected with the aggressor state. Such proposals have already been developed and posted for public discussion on the website of the state intellectual property system in the “Improvement of legislation” section and will be directed to the subjects of the legislative initiative for consideration,” Mykola Pototsky emphasized.

The subject is the changes to the law on the protection of the interests of persons in the IP sphere during martial law: it is proposed to update the provisions on the suspension of the procedural terms of the examination to resolve the IPR issues related to the aggressor state, to implement the European post-grant opposition procedure for trademarks.

The armed aggression of the russian federation against Ukraine exacerbated the need to develop legal mechanisms for balancing the interests of society and business regarding the legal protection of inventions related to medicinal products.

“We plan to start work on improving the Law of Ukraine “On the Protection of Rights to Inventions and Utility Models,” to fully implement the Bolar provision and clarify the regulation of relations regarding certificates of additional protection. In close dialogue with all interested parties, we must work out appropriate changes to the legislation,” the adviser to the director of the IP office emphasized.

In addition, the IP office is working on by-laws, the development of which is carried out in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On Copyright and Related Rights” and concerns the procedure of using of “orphan” works and the procedure for protecting the non-property rights of authors to works that have passed into the public domain, and for which there are no heirs.

In the focus of attention of the IP office team is the work on improving the legal acts on the legal status and patent attorneys’ attestation, the regulations of the Appeals Chamber, and the procedure for fees payment related to the IPR. Separate proposals have already been published on the website, and the discussion of these draft documents is currently underway.