The Bill (Reg.No.2022) proposes to amend the Laws ‘On Protection of Rights for Goods Origin Indication´ and ‘On Protection of Rights for Trademarks for Goods and Services´. These amendments seek to accommodate Ukrainian legislation to the provisions of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which is one of the WTO agreements.
The amendments to the Law ‘On Protection of Rights for Goods Origin Indication´ add a new provision to the effect that ‘where the raw stock for the manufacture of goods originates from a geographical location different from the place of manufacture, the geographical indication shall be deemed to be the place of the origin of the goods, provided that the geographical place of the raw stock manufacture (mining) is defined, special conditions for manufacture of the above raw stock exist, and compliance to these conditions is monitored´.
The Bill also seeks to provide legal protection, both to the origin of goods indication or geographical indication of goods origin, and to the traditional geographic or non-geographic name used in goods designation.
At the same time, the Bill proposes to reject the legal protection of a qualified designation of goods origin, which is ‘identical or confusingly similar to the trademark for goods and services, the rights for which are recognized in Ukraine, in the event that such legal protection can mislead the public as to the identity of the goods, given the reputation, awareness of, and length of time this trademark has been in use´.
The Bill details the list of documents foreigners should produce to obtain legal protection of the declared origin of goods in Ukraine.
The amendments to the Law ‘On Protection of Rights for Trademarks for Goods and Services´ introduce a new provision to the effect that ‘any use of trademarks and designations in domain names without consent from the Certificate holder, shall also be deemed an infringement of his rights´, and ‘a trademark can be recognized as well known irrespective of whether it was registered in Ukraine´.