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A trademark and a service mark are signs capable of individualizing goods, active jobs or services of natural persons or legal entities (Article 1477 of Civil Code of the Russian Federation, Part IV).

Legal protection of a trademark is provided on the basis of official registration. Verbal denominations, figurative, three-dimensional, audio, light and other signs or combination thereof may be registered as trademarks. A trademark may be made in any color or combination of colors.

Pay attention to the fact that trademarks may not be registered if they consist solely of signs:

That do not have distinctive capacity;
That are commonly used as designations of goods of a particular type;
That are symbols or terms in common use;
That indicate the type, quality, quantity, properties, purpose, value of the goods, or the place and time of their manufacture or sale;
That constitute armorial bearings, flags or emblems of State, official designations of States, emblems, etc.;
That are inaccurate or liable to mislead a consumer as to the product or its producer;
That are contrary to the public interest, humanitarian principles or morality.

There are some other Grounds for Rejection of Registration.

The following signs shall not be registered as trademarks if they are identical or confusingly similar to:

Trademarks of other persons, applied for registration (provided applications for them have not been recalled) or protected in the Russian Federation by virtue of international treaties to which the Russian Federation is a party, in respect of similar goods with an earlier priority;
Trademarks of other persons, recognized as famous by the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, Pert IV, in respect to similar goods.
Registration of the sign as a trademark in respect to similar goods, confusingly similar to the trademark, mentioned in Subparagraph above, shall be allowed only with the consent of the right holder.

The following signs shall not be registered as trademarks if they reproduce:

Trade names (or its part) protected in the Russian Federation in respect of similar goods, industrial design, compliance mark, the rights to which belonged to other persons in the Russian Federation, prior to the priority date of the registered trademark;
Titles of works of science, literature and art, characters or quotations from them, works of art or their fragments known in the Russian Federation by the filing date of the application, without the consent of a copyright owner or his successor in title, provided the rights to these works were used prior to the priority date of the registered trademark;
Last names, first names, pseudonyms and their derivatives, portraits and facsimile of the person known at the filing date of application, without the consent of that person or his successor.

PROTECTION OF THE RIGHT

Infringement of the rights of a trademark owner in accordance with the Code is deemed to be the unsanctioned production, use, import, offering for sale, sale, other introduction into marketing or storage therefore of a trademark or product designated by that mark, or a sign confusingly similar thereto in respect of a similar type of goods.

Protection of the right of a trademark against the unlawful use thereof, in addition to the requirements relating to termination of an infringement and compensation for damages sustained, is also carried out by:

Publication of a judicial decision for the purpose of restoration of the business reputation of the injured party;
Removal from the product or the packaging thereof of the illegally used trademark or a sign confusingly similar thereto, or destruction of existing reproductions of the trademark or of the sign confusingly similar to the trademark;
Monetary compensation appointed by a Court at the rate of 140 thousand Euro appointed by the Court.

TRADEMARK REGISTRATION

A legal entity and a natural person engaged in business activities shall hold an exclusive right to a trademark (right holder). It means that a right holder shall use his trade mark by himself and prevent others from using the trademark. In order to gain an exclusive right to a trademark it is necessary to register this trademark in the Patent Office.

Registration of a trademark stipulates for the examination of a sign in the Patent Office. In case of a positive decision of the examination, there shall be issued a Trademark Certificate that shall attest to the priority of the trademark, the exclusive right to a trademark in respect of the goods listed in the certificate.

An ordinary period of registration is 12 months.

Registration of a trademark shall be valid for ten years from the filing date of the application with the Patent Office. The trademark registration period may be extended at the request of its right holder, which should be filed during the last year of the expiring term, each time for the next ten years.

Legal protection of a trademark may be terminated ahead of time in respect of all or a part of goods in connection with a nonuse of a trademark for any three years in a row after its registration.

Using of a trademark by a licensee is sufficient to avoid nullification of registration. A trademark shall be also considered as used if it is utilized in advertising, in printed publications, official forms, and signboards, while displaying exhibits at exhibitions or fairs held in the Russian Federation, provided that there is a reasonable excuse for nonuse of the trademark on goods and/or their packages.

Skilled and full preliminary work with your mark until filing an application for it can be the assurance of successful registration of your trademark.

First of all it is a preliminary estimate of trademark protectability. Novelty examination of your mark among the registered and filed applications should also be carried out. This examination is carried out after the classes of the Nice Classification are defined. In case of a positive result of analysis an application for the registration of the trademark can be filed.

On the stage of the application filing as well as during the preliminary analysis participation of specialists is necessary, as not only the registration but the effectiveness of your mark protection in future depend on the well-filed application.